The Great Neck Union Free School District has presented a preliminary working budget of $193.3 million for 2011-12 – up 2 percent from last year.
Total estimated revenue from real property taxes, which account for 94.3 percent of budget revenue, is expected to rise from $178.7 million last year to 182.2 million this year, also a 2 percent increase.
The driving force behind this year’s budget is pension and health insurance costs which are increasing at a rate of 30 percent per year, according to school administrators.
“Our health insurance and retirement amount went up $6 million,” said Great Neck Superintendent of Schools Thomas Dolan. “That would have been a 2 percent increase all by itself.”
Despite diminished aid and accelerating expenditures, school administrators were able to keep appropriations to a minimum while maintaining most programs and services.
Unexpected staff retirements of senior employees, $500,000 in savings at the building level and the elimination of most positive variances all played a role in keeping budget numbers down, Dolan said.
“We are pretty proud of it,” said Dolan. “It’s as lean as it can be.”
With $9.9 million in reserves, Great Neck schools will be able to withstand momentous state cuts in education proposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo – but without eventual mandate relief from Albany, the district will be hard-pressed to support the governor’s long-term plan, Dolan said recently.
Under Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposal, $1.5 billion in aid will be cut from the state’s $19.4 billion annual education budget this year. Great Neck will receive $178,826 less than last year, according to the proposed school budget released March 3.
According to the report, 3.4 percent of the projected budget will come from state aid, which both “hurts and helps,” Powell said.
“When the state has to cut back, we don’t feel it as much,” said Powell. “But we don’t have the benefit when it is flowing as well.”
Last year, Great Neck schools received $6.75 million in state aid, this year $6.57 is expected, according to the preliminary budget report.
Powell said some contingencies were addressed by eliminating more than $1 million in “emergency money,” normally set aside for unexpected hardships like damage from last year’s microburst.
“Hopefully, we won’t run into those problems during the year,” he said.
Slight reductions were also made to supplies, materials, academic intervention programs and non-instructional aids, according to Powell.
“Overall, the instruction program was untouched.”
An all-day, April 2 workshop is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. at the South High School library where the budget will be analyzed line by line before it is finalized, Powell said.
Powell said there could be some changes could be made to the overall budget, but he does not expect any increases to the projected total.
“At this point in time, we don’t anticipate that,” he said.
Enrollment is expected to rise at a rate of .16 percent from 6,352 to 6,362, according to the report.
