On Tuesday, Feb. 14, the Great Neck Public School District is asking residents to support continuation of one of the best public educational systems in the country and approve $85,900,00 in new bonding.
The last time the school district asked for a bond was in 1998, which will expire in 2018.
The new, 20-year bond will allow the district to make much needed educational and building enhancements — $51.7 million worth — that cannot be afforded in the annual operating budget and that benefit a generation of taxpayers — while minimizing the financial impact on taxpayers and taking advantage of historically low interest rates.
The most ambitious parts of the bond go to the bold vision and fundamental philosophy of our school district: $6,587,571 will go to a new Clover Drive Building to house a new Early Childhood Center (pre-K) program, which is offered free to residents (though it is only partially subsidized by the state), as well as address overcrowding at E.M. Baker (where an assembly program has to be repeated three or four times to accommodate the school), by building a new auditorium and cafeteria and moving out its kindergarten.
This would give the north side of town a similar facility to Parkville, which houses the pre-K program and Lakeville kindergarten, which the district hopes to have running within 2 years.
Up until now, many families on the north end of town were unable to take advantage of the pre-K program at Parkville, which could be as much as a 45 minute bus ride away.
This is demonstrated by the statistics: Of the 118 Kindergartners in Parkville (for south side families) 81 attended Parkville pre-K, 31 did not (69 percent participation); of the 220 kindergartners in the North’s three elementary schools, 126 attended Parkville but 94 did not (57 percent).
Studies have shown that attendance at pre-K leads to better outcomes, academic and social, in elementary school, which in practical terms means less cost to a school district for remediation.
To make this happen, three programs currently housed at Clover Drive will be moved to a new Cumberland Center, which will be constructed at a cost of $9,804,492.
This new building will house Supportive Environment for All Learners along with Pupil Personnel Services offices. The Adult Learning Center will also be moved to Cumberland, which already houses the Adult Education Program.
In fact, the total cost of the 30 critical structural projects and 60 educational and building enhancements, selected after careful study, is $95,407,955, but the district is taking $9.5 million out of reserves (the Employee Benefit Accrued Liability, Workers Compensation, Retirement Contribution).
The tax impact will amount to $236 more for a home assessed at $750,000 once the bond is fully issued, in about three or four years (since some projects won’t begin immediately).
The bond also is necessitated because of the tax cap, which limits how much can be spent through the operating budget; debt service, on the other hand, is not included in the calculations determining the tax cap.
“It has been a daunting task, balancing being fiscally prudent, maintaining the integrity of our aging infrastructure, and ensuring that our educational programs help our students perform competitively and achieve personal success,” School board President Barbara Berkowitz wrote in the GNPS Bulletin detailing the bond proposal. “The Board has tried to manage as many capital needs and educational projects as possible within our regular budget cycle and also with referendums utilizing our capital reserves. Unfortunately, due to the constraints of the New York State-mandated tax cap, we have not been able to address many much needed projects.”
The board has basically accomplished miracles in keeping below the tax cap — which limits the amount of money to be raised by tax revenue to 2 percent or the CPI whichever is less (which is insane) — without cannibalizing our educational program, including its organizing principle of small class size.
Our school district — established more than 200 years ago — is one of the oldest in the nation.
School districts were specifically created to be under local control — which is why they are principally funded through property taxes (whereas municipalities have other sources of revenue including fines and fees).
Public education is under attack at the federal level (witness the abominable Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary) and yes, even by our progressive Gov. Andrew Cuomo who tears into school districts as the culprit for high property taxes. It is up to our community to preserve and improve what we have.
The district has a video explaining the bond, its financing and tax impact (on demand at www.greatneck.k12.ny.us, as well as over GNPS/TV).
The Bond Referendum vote will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 14, from 7 a.m.–10 p.m., at Baker School (for residents north of the LIRR) and at South High School (for residents south of the LIRR). For more information, call 516-441-4020.
