NHP-GCP budget sticks to state tax cap

Robert W Katulak

Each May, all constituents of school districts across New York State are given the important task of reading all the pertinent facts and details regarding their school district’s school budget.  They also get the information regarding the residents, who are running for a trustee position, and who will represent them in the decisions, which affect the quality of the educational services we can provide for our students. 

This year, the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School District has created a budget that continues to adhere to the tax cap as proposed by Governor Cuomo. 

Our budget has been developed with the collaborative efforts of our budget builder administrators under the guidance and leadership of our Board of Education, Superintendent of Schools and the Assistant Superintendent for Business. 

After six months of thoughtful conversation, expenditure analysis, cost cutting budget allocations, we have reached the lowest budget-to-budget increase of 1.55%. 

Even though we have a minimum increase, the lowest in over ten years, we were able to create a budget that preserves all programs for students, balances instruction within decent average class sizes of 22 students, and maintains all personnel. 

The budget process utilized the input of our public at three open Board of Education meetings and fulfilled the goals of our board to be within our tax cap threshold of 1.64%.

We believe in transparency when we create and publish our budget and, therefore, if you visit our district’s website, you will find a line-by-line description of each anticipated expenditure of the entire budget. 

You will also be able to find a copy of our budget presentation used in over ten deliveries throughout our district. All residents will also receive in the mail a budget Newsbrief that highlights all facts, figures and details of the budget and the progress and accomplishments of our students and staff over the past year. 

We hope that you will be able to gather all the necessary information you need to vote for the future of the district in the way you deem fit. 

The election polling place is at Manor Oaks School located at 1950 Hillside Avenue and the polling hours are 6:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. 

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