Incumbents keep seats, budget passes in Roslyn

Rose Weldon

BY ROSE WELDON AND ROBERT PELAEZ

Five school districts serving the Roslyn area passed their 2021-22 budgets on Tuesday, with two welcoming new faces to their school boards and three seeing incumbents return.

ROSLYN

In an election for three seats on the Roslyn Board of Education, incumbent Trustees David Seinfeld, David Dubner and Michael Levine won re-election, besting challenger Ronald Gerber.

Levine received 702 votes, while Dubner received 692, Seinfeld received 679 and Gerber received 419.

Seinfeld, one of the board’s longest-serving trustees and a veteran in educational services, was first elected in 2006. Dubner, an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, was appointed to the Board of Education in 2013 following the resignation of Dani Kline and was elected to fill the remainder of her term, and has since been re-elected once. Levine, a lawyer, was elected in 2018 after former Trustee Adam Haber chose not to run for another term.

Efforts to reach the incumbents and Gerber for comment were unavailing.

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Residents also voted to approve the district’s 2021-22 budget. The $118,663,250 plan, which has a 2.89 percent spending increase from the current year and comes with a 1.98 percent tax levy, passed with 855 yes votes and 249 no votes.

Also passed were Proposition 2, the 2021-22 budget for the Bryant Library in the amount of $5,095,669, and Proposition 3, authorizing the district to spend $463,282.66 for various school buses and vans, continuing the district’s ongoing program of replacing the oldest vehicles in the fleet.

NORTH SHORE SCHOOLS

With school board Vice President Timothy Madden and Trustee Lisa Vizza choosing not to campaign for re-election, four candidates competed for two seats at the North Shore school district in Glen Head.

Candidates Lisa Colacioppo, who previously served on the district’s Social-Emotional Learning Action Planning Committee, and Maria Mosca, a parent active in the district who has given lessons on weather patterns to students, won, besting Paul Puskuldjian, COO of trading software company Kinetix Trading Solutions, and engineer Anthony Stanco, who was on the ballot last year.

Colacioppo received 1,807 votes, Mosca received 1,753, Puskuldjian received 1,684 and Stanco received 674.

Voters also narrowly approved the 2021-22 school year budget, totaling $111,641,018, which represents a 1.20% increase from last year and calls for a 1.43% tax levy increase. The budget received 1,771 yes votes and 1,754 no votes.

An additional proposition on the ballot, which sought voter approval to establish a new Capital Reserve Fund for the district, not to exceed $8,275,000, for infrastructure projects, failed.    Vote totals was not immediately available.

HERRICKS

Herricks Board of Education Trustees Brian Hassan and Nancy Feinstein were both re-elected. 

Feinstein received 888 votes and Hassan received 675, according to the district.

Feinstein, a Roslyn resident, was elected to her fifth three-year term on the board. She has three children who have all attended and graduated from Herricks schools.

Hassan, an Albertson resident, was also elected to his fifth term on the board. He has three children who have graduated from the Herricks schools.

Efforts to reach the incumbents for comment were unavailing.

Voters also passed the $122.9 million budget. The budget received 825 votes in favor of it, compared with 391 votes opposed.

The budget is a $2.33 million, or 1.94 percent, increase from the 2020-21 budget.

The budget called for a 1.42 percent increase in the 2021-22 tax levy from this year, but it remained below the state cap of 2.51 percent.

The initially proposed 1.86 percent levy increase was lowered to 1.42 percent as a result of additional state aid. The district’s average levy increase since the cap’s inception in 2012-13 is 1.66 percent.

The district also passed a proposition to allow the district to spend $1.2 million of capital reserve funds for renovations to the Herricks High School auditorium. The proposition received 888 votes in favor, compared with 301 against it.

“Our Board and Administration worked diligently to develop a budget that continues to support all programs and opportunities for students yet was well below the allowable tax levy cap,” a district statement said. “We appreciate the efforts of and thank everyone in the community who participated in the budget development process and all those who express a continued interest in our schools.”

 

EAST WILLISTON 

East Williston Board of Education Trustees Robert Fallarino and Leonard Hirsch were re-elected after running unopposed.

Fallarino received 259 votes and Hirsch received 250, according to election results provided by the district.

Hirsch, from Roslyn Heights, has served two terms on the board. He has two children, one in Willets Road School and one in North Side School. Hirsch, who grew up in East Williston, was first elected to the board in 2012.

Fallarino, a medical malpractice attorney, won his fifth three-year term on the board. Fallarino has also previously served as a prosecuting attorney for the Village of Floral Park.

Voters also approved the $64 million budget for 2021-22, which includes $6.81 million to fund capital projects. The budget received 222 votes in favor and 95 votes opposed. 

The $63,984,675 budget is a 1.4 percent increase from the $63,091,128 budget for 2020–21. The budget also comes with a property tax levy increase of 1.67 percent.

Joseph Piscopia, a member of the Capital Facilities Advisory Committee, outlined several current and future projects underway at the district’s schools. They include the installation of a new irrigation system for the fields at Northside School and the addition of new sidewalks from the parking lot at Willets Road School.

Some projects have been completed recently at the Wheatley School, including the installation of a new gymnasium floor and replacement of the turf on the baseball field.

MINEOLA

Middle school teacher Stacey DeCillis was elected to the Mineola Board of Education, filling the seat previously held by President Christine Napolitano, who did not seek re-election.

DeCillis received 699 votes while Trustee Brian Widman, who also ran unopposed, for his third term on the board, received 680 votes. 

DeCillis has worked as an eighth-grade history teacher at Garden City Middle School for 17 years and has lived in Mineola for 13 years. She said that her family’s background in education and community involvement made running for the board a natural choice for her.

“My mom was an administrator in a district, and my father was also a school board member previously, so I come from a background of educators who want to give back to the community,” DeCillis said in an interview before the election. “Since there was an open seat this year, I found this as my opportunity to give back to the community, to make sure that the district continues the trajectory that it’s on right now.”

Efforts to reach DeCillis and Widman for further comment were unavailing.

The district’s $111.8 million budget for the 2021-22 school year also passed, receiving 718 votes in favor and 210 opposed.

The budget is an increase of almost $11 million, or 10.87 percent, from the $100.1 million budget for 2020-21.

The budget calls for no increase in the tax levy. Capital projects such as Jackson Avenue School renovations and additions call for $13 million, according to Assistant Business Manager Andrew Casale.

Jackson Avenue renovations include a new cafeteria, kitchen, playground, sidewalks, retaining walls on the east side of the school, and new grass fields for soccer and lacrosse. Also featured is the construction of a new field house, which officials expect to take about three years to complete.

 

 

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