The anticipated budget cut required from the current level of spending in the Herricks School District has been reduced to $2.9 million – from a previous estimate of $3.4 million – based on a lower-than-expected 3.2 percent increase projected in health insurance costs for public employees statewide.
The lower increase in the projected insurance rate, and corresponding drop in the gap between the school district’s current $98.9 million budget and the year-to-year reduction needed to meet a 2 percent tax cap next year, were revealed by Helen Costigan, Herricks assistant superintendent of business, at last Thursday night’s Herricks Board of Education meeting.
“It’s good news,” said Costigan, who said the state Comptrollers office has yet to determine which year’s Teachers Retirement System rate will be applicable to the cap.
The other remaining variable for the board to consider is the amount of state aid Herricks will receive. She said elimination of the MTA tax for 80 percent of employers statewide, including school districts, which will translate into additional financial relief.
Herricks Superintendent of Schools John Bierwirth said state aid represents a “teeny” portion of Herricks budget and sounded a skeptical note on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s call last week for a 4 percent increase in state aid to education next year.
“He can call for it, but there’s a distance between that and getting it,” Bierworth said.
Based on a projected increase of 12.5 percent in the Teachers Retirement rate next year, Herricks administrators had previously projected a $3.4 million budget reduction year-to-year, down from an original projection of $3.7 million when public budget discussions began earlier this year.
Based on a $2.9 million reduction from current spending levels, Bierwirth said the school district would probably need to eliminate 29 or 30 positions without significant cuts in other areas of the budget. That’s half the number of layoffs that Herricks was forced to make last year, and he said it portends cutbacks in some academic programs.
“We cut 63 positions last year and it messed us up a lot. Many things are under our control and many are not,” Bierwirth said. “Now we know we’re looking at pretty serious cuts next year and probably the year after that.”
Costigan noted earlier that the district could cut between $3 million and $3.1 million in spending if all district employees agreed to a wage freeze for next year.
School board president Christine Turner said after a November hiatus in talks with the Herricks Teachers Association following the death of its president, Craig Lagnese, she anticipated negotiations resume shortly. She has stated the board’s goal is for the teachers to accept a wage freeze next year.
“We are continuing discussions with the teachers union and ourselves,” Turner said. “We are still in negotiations with them and we are still acting together.”
The teachers union has been awaiting a response from the board to a proposed revision of its current contract made in November
The teachers are currently in the third year of a five-year contract that calls for a 2.75 percent increase in salaries this year, with 3 percent increases guaranteed in the final two years of the current contract. The average state-mandated “step” salary increases in addition to those increments are 1.8 percent each year, according to Costigan.
On another issue of continuing concern, school district security officer Joseph Wendling reported that he had recently completed investigations of 11 families with children attending schools in district. One family withdrew from the district and another family also is about to do the same, according to Wendling, who said the other situations required no further action.
Bierwirth said the school district administration had been checking into 16 or 17 questionable situations that had been reported to it apart from the cases Wendling had investigated.
But he noted that the school district is constrained to act in instances of families residing in illegal apartments. Bierwirth said families residing in illegal apartments must be referred to the Town of North Hempstead for legal remedies through the courts.
“We can’t go after them for tuition because they were residing there,” Bierwirth said.
Bierwirth said he has discussed the idea of a law with state Sen. Jack Martins that would enable school districts to sue landlords for liability in cases of children who live in illegal apartments and attend schools in the district. When Martins spoke at a Herricks School Board meeting in October, he said one idea that has been “floated” in the state Legislature is to oblige families to obtain a form from the town building department verifying that they are legally occupying their residence.
Board Vice President Richard Buckley said he thought the board has been spending too much time discussing the issue of illegal residence cases since it became a prominent issue during last year’s school budget vote.
“Can we spend some time talking about the education of our children? Because this is ridiculous,” Buckley said.
Board member Jim Gounaris said Wendling’s work was helpful but didn’t “eliminate” the issue of multiple families living in single-family homes. He suggested that the school district might seek to implement a more stringent registration to address that issue.
“No, don’t say that. There’s nothing we can do. It’s simply not fair to any of us to say we can do something,” Bierwirth immediately said. “Until the law’s changed, we can’t do that.”
