Great Neck school district voters approved the passage of school and library budgets by wide margins and school board trustee Monique Bloom won her first full term in office in Tuesday’s elections.
The $209 million schools budget was approved by a vote 1,183 to 321, and the library budget was passed with 1,038 votes in favor and 403 against.
Both budgets fell within the state mandated tax cap. And Bloom won her uncontested election with 1,094 votes, with two write in votes for Great Neck resident and prolific writer of letters-to-the-editor Larry Penner.
“I’m very satisfied, and very grateful for the support that the Great Neck community shows its public schools, and happy that the community still believes in what we’re doing here with such an overwhelming expression of support,” said Great Neck Public Schools Assistant Superintendent for Business John Powell.
Despite a 3.14 percent increase in the tax levy – $6 million – the school budget increase falls within the state-mandated tax cap, with costs being offset by a dip into reserve funds and a reduction in an equivalent of 17 teacher positions and 21 teachers’ aides, assistants and monitors.
Board Vice President Lawrence Gross described a “herculean effort” on the part of the stakeholders to find savings without compromising programs following the budget’s adoption by the board in April.
“The budget is within the cap that it is suggested we stay within,” Gross said. “There are some reductions of staff, but they are done in a way to maintain [programs.]”
In future years, finding that balance may be more of a challenge, warned Gross. He described growing costs due to state mandates and stagnant state aid, and said that the state needs to consider education a “paramount function” of government.
“In coming years it will not be so easy to create a budget that does what this one does,” Gross said.
The Great Neck Library’s $8.53 million budget, which includes a 1.97 percent tax levy increase, features a $119,000 increase from 2012-2013. Some $8.4 million will be covered by tax appropriations, with the rest derived from operating revenues. The increase was driven by a $79,700 jump in employee benefits and taxes and a $53,000 increase in spending for materials and programs.
Much of the change in materials and programs expenses was due to projected $27,100 increase in Nassau Library System fees, according to the budget. The board is in dispute with Nassau Library System over the way the consortium assesses its fees for online databases and library services, alleging that Nassau Library System’s practice of basing fees on the size of a library’s budget is unfair.
The board is also projecting a $43,000, or 24.6 percent, drop in operating revenue, which business manager Neil Zitofsky attributed at an April meeting to an overestimation of the income that would result from hiking late-return fines last year.
The $79,700 jump in employee benefits resulted from rises in state retirement contributions and health-insurance premiums, according a statement issued by the board in April.
But salaries took a 1 percent drop, with the library trimming two full-time equivalent positions from last year’s budget.
Bloom won her first full term in office after being appointed in June 2012 after board Vice President Fran Langsner moved outside the school district, forcing her resignation.
