Fate of school, library budgets to be decided

Anthony Oreilly

Residents of the Great Neck Public School District will head to the polls on Tuesday to vote on a $214 million school budget, a $9.6 million library budget and two school board seats being sought by incumbents Lawrence Gross, and Susan Healy and challenger Chris Huang. 

The school’s $214,067,850 budget, adopted at its April 24 meeting, is a $4.6 million increase over the current 2013-2014 budget – a 2.21 increase – and calls for a 1.97 percent increase in the tax levy.

“Residents should vote in favor of it because it maintains the program that has been successful here in Great Neck,” said Assistant Superintendent for Business Jonathan Powell. “It provides all the needs for our students to be successful and preparing them for the next level beyond our school district.”

Revenues for the district were bolstered by a New York State Court of Appeals ruling in the county “guaranty” tax certiorari case in February that freed up $2,2261,000 in money set aside for real estate tax challenges and a $140,000 increase in state aid. 

Powell said the $2,261,000 freed up by the tax certiorari case was shifted to help finance several capital improvement projects throughout the school district.

On April 24, the board increased spending from what was proposed in the budget in March by $565,160 to restore some staff cuts called for in the budget released in March. The board increased the tax levy from 1.37 percent to 1.97 percent to cover the cost.

Powell said the decision to increase the tax levy was made in response to a two-year “property tax freeze” that was passed by the state Legislature as part of the budget approved by the state in late March.

Powell said that homeowners whose districts stayed under the 2 percent state-mandated tax cap will receive a rebate check from the state in the fall of 2014 in the amount equal to how much the homeowner’s taxes went up in the 2014-2015 school year.

Powell said by increasing the tax levy to 1.97 percent, homeowners in the Great Neck Public School District would receive a bigger rebate check than if their taxes were at 1.37 percent.

“We felt it was an equitable handling of the new legislation,” Powell said.

Powell said homeowners will receive another rebate check in the fall of the 2015-2016 school year, if the school district can save $1.9 million in the 2015-2016, 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 school years.

The budget also calls for $1,194,528 in reserve funds to be used to decrease the need for taxes, Powell said.

The budget also calls for $140,000 in additional state aid to be used to maintain elementary school class sizes, Powell said.

“That money will be used to create two contingency positions in case our enrollment goes up,” he said.

Kindergarten classes in the Great Neck public school district are limited to no more than 19 students in a class, grades one and two a maximum of 22 and grades three to five a maximum of 25, according to Great Neck Superintendent of Schools Tom Dolan.

The budget calls for 6,432 students to be enrolled in the school system for the 2014-15 school year, an increase of 40 students from the current school year.

Powell also said the school district will save about $100,000 by retiring the position of attendance registrar.

“One of our existing administrators will take over the responsibilities [of the registrar],” he said.

The budget calls for $196,435,489 to be raised in property taxes, which is about 92 percent of the school’s revenue.

Healy and Gross will seeking to retain their seats on the board against Huang, who has run on a platform of raising the academic standard of the Great Neck Public School District.

“If we’re slipping, I want to know why,” Huang said in an April interview. “And if you can’t do that job I want a different person to do it.”

Huang has also said he would task the school administration to start weighing student’s AP averages. 

Huang said he was part of a committee of parents in the school district, which asked Dolan to complete a survey of all the schools in Nassau County that weigh student’s AP scores.

“To my absolute dismay I found out that Great Neck is the only high school [in Nassau County] that did not weigh AP grading,” Huang said.

Huang said he was born in Taiwan and at the age of 12 moved to Brazil. He later moved to the United States to study at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton, where he got a Ph.D in mechanical aerospace engineering. He said also has a masters of business administration degree from C.W. Post. 

Huang said he currently works as a product manager at OpenLink Finanical in Uniondale.

Gross, in a letter to the editor last week, touted his accomplishments during his 33 years on the board.

“Over the years, many changes were made to make our district more efficient and more focused on the needs of individual students,” said Gross, who currently servesas vice president of the board. “These accomplishments require knowledge and hard work by the entire board and staff.”

Gross, an alumnus of Brown University and a veteran of the U.S. Navy, is the managing director of Concurrent Industries Group, which manufactures products for the food service industry. Gross has also served as the president of the board three times, from 1982-85 1991-95 and from 2003-06.

Healy, in a separate letter to the editor last week, said the job of school board trustee required experience.

“I believe that to do this job well requires time, commitment, a hard work ethic and knowledge that comes from years of service,” Healy said. “That’s what makes Great Neck great.”

An alumna of William Paterson College, Healy is a former executive vice president and treasurer of the Great Neck South Middle School Parent Teacher Association. In 2012, she was named the board’s policy chair. 

Residents will also vote on the Great Neck Public Library’s $9.6 million budget, adopted at its April 9 meeting, which calls for 1.19-percent increase in the tax levy for revenues subject to the state-mandated tax cap. 

The budget, which is an increase of $1,073,500 from last year, includes both spending and revenue related to the $10.4 million bond approved by voters in November for improvements at the Main Branch.

The tax portion budgeted for the bond – $875,000 –  could change depending on how much the library’s bond is bought for, board President Marietta DiCamillo said in April.

“Unfortunately, for the first year we don’t what the exact amount of money will be,” DiCamillo said. “That will get adjusted once we sell the bond.”

The board is projecting $32,900 decrease in revenue during the fiscal year, due to the closing of the Main branch during renovation.

Library business manager Neil Zitofsky said the decrease in revenue was only an estimate and that there was no concrete way in determining that figure. 

“At this point we have no exact way of knowing what that’s going to be,” Zitofsky said. “But we’re just assuming that with the loss of Main there will be less late fee payment and circulation.”

The budget also projects a $934,000 decrease in total employee salaries, which Zitofsky said also comes from the closure of the Main Library. 

“The library currently employs about 140 people, full and part time,” Zitofsky said. “With the Main Library closed, logically there’s no place to put all those people.” 

DiCamillo announced at a February meeting that the public library system would be reduced to its other three branches – Parkville, Lakeville and Station – during the renovation project.

DiCamillo expressed her support for the budget. 

“I urge the people to come out and vote for the budget,” DiCamillo said.

Residents can vote on May 20 from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., at  E.M. Baker Elementary School and Great Neck South High School.

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