Roslyn to vote on two school board seats, budget

Rose Weldon
Roslyn school board President Meryl Waxman Ben-Levy and board Vice President Clifford Saffron, pictured at a Board of Trustees meeting, were both re-elected for their sixth terms in this year's school elections. (Photo by Jessica Chin)

Two seats on the Roslyn Board of Education and the budget for the 2020-21 school year are on the ballot in Tuesday’s election.

The two seats on the board are being sought by incumbent President Meryl Waxman Ben-Levy and incumbent Vice President Clifford Saffron, who are running unopposed. Both were first elected in 2005 and are running for their sixth three-year terms on the board.

The election is being carried out with absentee ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The district’s proposed budget for the 2020-21 school year is $115,860,057, a $2,669,861 increase from the budget of the 2019-20 year, which totaled $113,190,196.

Among the notable additions in the budget are a college adviser and new mental health intervention approaches, and a mental health consultant coming onboard in an advisory capacity, as well as Google Chromebooks for seventh-graders after success with them in the eighth-grade classrooms.

The tax levy for the year comes to $97,857,446, increasing by $2,817,618 from the 2019-20 tax levy. The rise of 2.96 percent in the levy estimate is below the state-mandated limit of 3.63 percent.

As for voting, the district says every qualified voter was to receive a ballot in the mail with a postage-paid return envelope. Those who have not voted in a district or general election in the last four years, or are new residents and have not registered to vote with the school district or the Board of Elections need to register in advance to be able to vote in the school budget vote and election.

Ballots must be returned by mail and received by the district clerk by 5 p.m. on Tuesday.

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