A former 15-year New Hyde Park-Garden City Park school board trustee is seeking a return to the board after her recent return to the district.
Patricia Rudd of Garden City Park is running for a school board seat as Trustee Joan Romagnoli steps down after 12 years.
“I think I’ve done my community service for the community that I love,” Romagnoli said on Tuesday.
Rudd said Monday night her “love for the community and the education here” drove her to get back on the school board after coming back from Michigan, where she moved for work in 2014. She returned to the area about a year ago, she said.
As a trustee, Rudd was active with the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association and was involved with education lobbying efforts in Albany and Washington, D.C., she said.
Her three children went to New Hyde Park-Garden City Park schools, and her daughter is a part-time physical education teacher in the district, she said.
Rudd said she misses the “hands-on” nature of lobbying and wants to take it up again. She is concerned about “big changes” in the administration of education, she said, particularly the recent appointment of former state Education Commissioner John King as the federal education secretary.
She said she would like to see the federal government move away from the Common Core standards and return control to local school districts.
“Every state has different concerns and different needs,” she said. “If a state is failing on education, then yes, the federal government has to step in. But a good district like ours, that’s why we have local school boards. We want to govern our own education.”
Romagnoli was elected to the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park school board in 2004 and has been its representative to the Sewanhaka Central High School District board for 10 years, she said.
She has learned a lot in that time and is proud of maintaining district programs over the years, she said.
While Rudd is not running for a particular seat, Romagnoli said she would make a good successor.
“I know Tricia’s got all the knowledge and the background, and I’d feel very comfortable if she takes my place,” she said.
The New Hyde Park-Garden City Park school board also adopted the district’s $37.5 million 2016-2017 budget Monday night after a state aid boost created more room for contingencies.
The district’s $5.855 million state aid package — including a $126,791 payment fully reimbursing it for the state’s so-called “gap elimination adjustment” — created room for contingency expenses administrators previously had to cut, Assistant Superintendent for Business Michael Frank said.
The state boosted school funding in its budget, approved April 1, by making districts whole for money it withheld from schools in 2010 and 2011 to close its own budget deficit. School administrators have said the boost is also compensation for a tight tax levy cap this year.
“If the state left us on our own and said ‘Hey, that’s too bad for you, you have to make do,’ we’d be talking a very different story here,” Frank said.
The budget reflects a 1.99-percent increase over the current year and grows the tax levy 0.38 percent, an average tax hike of $12.38, Frank said.
The district will maintain its programs and purchase new equipment to support its science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics initiatives and start a one-to-one technology program, Superintendent Robert Katulak said.
On top of extra state aid, lower state pension contributions, teacher retirements and $800,000 in savings helped offset expense increases driven by rising salaries and benefits, Frank said.
Rudd said the district was “lucky” to have gotten so much state aid and will have to watch possible enrollment increases in coming years.
“We really have to be frugal on every cent, because we don’t know what money we’re going to get back from the state every year, and we can’t rely on it,” she said.
Residents will vote on the budget and for three school board seats on May 17.
School board President Ernest Gentile’s and Trustee Jennifer Kerrane’s seats are also up for election.
