As noted in our last column, a budget is the practical expression of mission, values. It is the thing that turns promises, slogans, policies into real programs.
In contrast, to Trump’s anti-American ‘America First” budget, the Great Neck School District’s budget fulfills its promise and its mission to provide the resources and opportunities so that every child, no matter ability, can fulfill his or her full potential.
And unlike the federal budget (and the way it handled the TrumpCare fiasco and the impending tax “reform”), the amount of analysis and fine tuning that goes into the school budget process is extraordinary, admirable and unbelievably transparent with enormous opportunity for any member of the community to engage.
That clearly was not OMB Director Mike Mulvaney’s process, who said he merely put numbers to Trump’s campaign speeches, making outrageous statements like it is okay to cut the school free lunch program does not have an effect on the student’s performance. (Great Neck has a surprising percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch.)
Indeed, it always flabbergasts me how the very people who vociferously or surreptitiously attack the school budget never actually show up for the meetings that give the rationale.
That guy who falsely accused the school district of spending $34,000 per pupil wasn’t there but had he come to any budget meetings he would understand that you can’t just take the total operating budget and divide by 6,500 students enrolled in K-12 district schools, but also need to add in the expenses, including $6 million that go toward the 1,500 Great Neck students attending parochial and private schools ($4.5 million for transportation, alone), the hundreds of adults who take advantage of high-school equivalency and English language programs (for which the district gets grant money), the summer enrichment programs that actually generate income, and the programs like the SEAL Academy and Village alternative high school which generate $4 million in revenue for the district from out-of-district tuition, without incurring a dime extra in expense.
The actual per pupil cost for a general education student? is $16,348 for K-6 and $25,062 for 7-12 – hardly unreasonable for a district that has been ranked No. 1 in the state and No. 5 in the country. But we parents who have had our children graduate and go on to successful college and careers know full well.
Nor are our teachers, despite being among the best in the country, paid the highest salaries, as some have charged, even though they would be justified.
In the 20 years that I have reported on the school district’s budget process, there has never been a year when people did not complain about the terrible economy and crippling taxes.
And despite the steady growth in the economy since — a tripling in the Dow since the 2008 financial collapse — I have yet to hear anyone come forward and tell the school board, “We have recovered and want to make sure the school district has the resources to meet the challenges of the 21st century.”
The defeat of the extremely conservative, well analyzed, indeed paired down bond — the first in 20 years, designed to seamlessly replace the retiring bond so to minimize any actual increase to taxpayers while providing the district the capital funds it needs for the next 20 years — was an unprecedented and concerning reversal of the support and value this community has always placed in public education.
That thinking has led the board to cut out the funding for a new Early Childhood building to house a new pre-K program on the north side, and cut out the new Cumberland Center, reducing the bond issue to $68 million from $85 million. I think it is sad the board felt they had to abandon the most visionary parts of the 20-year bond.
Because we have been blessed with the hardest-working, best-intentioned and frankly smartest people who serve on our school board (and oh how we thank and will miss Lawrence Gross who is leaving the board after serving for 35 years), this district has somehow escaped having to make the cruel cuts to programming that other districts have had to — essentially cutting everything that isn’t specifically mandated.
This year’s budget, despite adding staffing to accommodate increased enrollment and maintaining low-class size at the elementary level and keeping all the programs intact, still stays below the mandated cap on the tax levy 1.26 percent. But that is largely because of the $4 million in revenue the district earns and a relatively small increase in mandated payments for health and pension benefits — otherwise this district, too, would likely have to shave popular programs.
Nonetheless, individual homeowners will likely see more of an increase in their property taxes.
Why? Total assessed valuation is down because two-thirds of our neighbors win tax certioraris and because the state and county are so generous giving out PILOTs to companies, which means that each of us has to pick up that share of the school district’s operating expenses.
