For the second time in less than a month, Manhasset residents will go to the polls on Tuesday and vote on a 2013-14 budget for its school district that will require a supermajority vote in order to pass.
The Manhasset Board of Education agreed to a revised $86,176,419 budget for the 2013-14 school year June 4 that is $3.1 million less than the budget that failed to get a supermajority vote last month and $900,000 less than the 2012-13 budget, but its 1.97 percent tax levy increase is still in excess of its allowable .15 percent tax levy increase.
Most districts on Long Island had an allowable tax levy limit of around a 3 percent tax levy increase this year, but Manhasset’s was much lower because it went through a process of refinancing its debt starting in 2008 when interest rates were low, increasing its budget roughly 2 percent each year, Manhasset Assistant Superintendent for Business Rosemary Johnson has said.
Johnson said the tax levy legislation enacted in 2011 seeks to hurt, rather than help districts who don’t spend toward building their school communities.
And during that time, Manhasset used $8.5 million in reserve funds to offset its tax levy increases, lessening the burden on taxpayers during tough economic times.
“We have lived the last four years with the understanding that people were under intense pressure, unemployment was very high, people were losing their houses,” Johnson said at the board’s May 23 work session. “What could we do to assist? We put money toward the tax levy every single year and lived to fight another day, and we did that year in and year out.”
Manhasset Superintendent of Schools Charles Cardillo, who presented the latest budget at a board of education meeting on Tuesday, said the reductions in the latest budget are the result of a series of cuts to teachers, administrators and custodians as well as to other areas of the district, which is comprised of 3,293 students, including extracurricular academic programs and athletics.
If a second budget vote does not pass, the board will cut all extracurricular programs and athletics, in addition to cutting more teachers from both the elementary and secondary levels, resulting in $1.5 million in additional reductions, in order to reach a contingent budget commonly referred to as “austerity.”
“There’s a point that everyone has in their mind as to what’s attainable for the 60 percent vote should look like,” Cardillo said at the board’s June 4 budget adoption meeting. “This is not a 50 percent election. This is about one thing – if we don’t reach 60 percent, we take a huge hit.”
Residents first voted on a $89 million budget May 21 that included a 5.98 percent tax levy increase, but was only passed by 53.3 percent of voters, and Manhasset was one of six school districts on Long Island seeking the supermajority vote whose budgets did not pass after the initial vote.
Laurann Pandelakis, a spokesperson for the Manhasset Proponents for School Accountability, which opposed the budget that was defeated in May, wrote a Letter to the Editor to the Manhasset Times calling the revised levy increase “a victory for an entire community.”
“Although the Manhasset School District has submitted a 1.97 percent tax levy increase instead of the .15 percent allowable tax cap increase, we consider it an accomplishment,” Pandelakis wrote. “The board initially proposed a tax levy of 8 percent which was eventually reduced to 1.97 percent. Furthermore, the superintendent has assured us that he is committed to the tax cap moving forward.”
Residents who attended the board work sessions in the last two weeks expressed disappointment with the failed first vote, and stressed the importance of passing the budget on the second vote to keep the extracurricular activities and competitive academic programs that have made Manhasset one of the strongest districts on Long Island.
Approximately $500,000 in Manhasset’s recent budgetary cuts came from the reduction of about 20 full-time equivalent positions throughout the district, comprised of teachers, administrators, teacher aides and custodians, Cardillo said.
Through collective bargaining negotiations with the teacher’s union, as well as new retirement incentives for the district’s nine retirees, the district regained roughly $300,000 from pension contributions.
“That’s money they put back on the table,” Cardillo said June 4. “So for all the criticism that the teachers are paid too much or the pensions are too high, they’re doing their part to help us out as well.”
Johnson has said salaries and benefits account for 78 percent of the district’s budget, and state-mandated pension contributions to the teachers retirement system were 16.25 percent higher than last year’s and have increased 262 percent since 2009-10. Contributions to the employee retirement system, which increased 20.90 percent since last year, have increased 299 percent since 2009-10.
Cardillo has said that one of the most significant programs the board wanted to keep at the elementary level was its full kindergarten program and maintain the class sizes it had projected prior to the May 21 vote.
The board decided to cut the fourth grade music program, but keep its programs at the fifth and sixth grade levels, and cut elementary funding for extracurricular programs by 50 percent.
Cardillo said at the middle school level, the board adjusted its class sizes, now between 28-32 students, rather than cut many programs.
“The integrity of the middle school program, just like the elementary school program, has been left intact,” Cardillo said.
The board also reduced funding of extracurricular activities by 50 percent, but wants its music and drama programs to operate the way they have in the last few years.
At the middle school level, the board eliminated from its athletics program the “combo teams” which had previously allowed all students to participate. Manhasset will now have one seventh grade and one eighth grade team per sport.
The primary objective for the board when approaching the high school’s cuts, Cardillo said, was to maintain its competitive academic programs while reaching the maximum number of students from a wide range of learning abilities even though it condensed some class sections.
The board kept its science and math research programs, as well as many of the district’s Advanced Placement classes, while also maintaining all special education classes, both for students staying on campus and those who travel to other facilities.
The district would also fund 75 percent of its extracurricular programs and maintain all athletic programs.
“The reason the funding at the high school level is 75 and not 50 because the high school students really need it. We’ve heard about students speak about needing the programs to meet their needs as they apply to college, and we want to provide support so our students aren’t short-changed in a competitive atmosphere.”
Voting will take place June 18 from 6:30 a.m. until 10 p.m. in the Secondary School cafeteria, located at 200 Memorial Place.
