Mineola Board of Education unveils 2021-2022 draft budget

Katie Fenton

Mineola’s Board of Education plans to propose a $103,864,388 budget for the 2021-22 school year, they revealed at a Feb. 25 meeting.

The draft budget is 2.98 percent increase over the $100,859,780 budget for 2020–21 and comes with a tax levy increase of 0.05 percent.

The bulk of the change comes from a 0.64 percent increase in salaries to $53,780,126 and a 0.83 percent increase in benefits to $24,283,000. The increase in benefits is primarily driven by an increase in health costs, which increased by 1.5 percent increase.

The board expects state aid to go back up to $7,700,000, partially accounting for the increased budget.

However, a significant part of the increase comes from the sale of their spectrum with Nextel, resulting in $9 million to be spent on Mineola schools. Dr. Michael Nagler, the school superintendent, explained the implications of the sale.

“I was under the impression when we sold [the Nextel spectrum] that we could put that $9 million in a reserve and take money out every year to match the money we would lose in revenue… We’d space it out over time,” Nagler said. “Because it is not real property, we cannot put in a reserve fund. So right now, it’s sitting in our fund balance — our savings account, if you want to look at it that way—and we have to spend it.”

Nagler suggested that the money should go toward renovating Jackson Avenue School rather than other budget costs.

“The big problem with fund balance is that it’s cash. You shouldn’t be spending it on salaries or benefits, because once you spend it, it’s gone,” he said. “If you put it in your budget as an expense line, where are you getting the money next year?”

Mineola Board of Education President Christine Napolitano supported Nagler’s proposal and said that the school renovations are a good way to put the money back into residents’ pockets.

“The $9 million is going back to [Mineola residents]; it’s going into the buildings. And by doing it this way, we hope to not have to do all that kind of work in 5, 10 years,” Napolitano said. “I think the way that we’ve been managing our buildings is, we’re building a modern school district that should be able to sustain the test of time. Certainly, things can pop up… but at least the size of the rooms, and all those things—that’s there. That’s there to use forever.”

The project to refurbish Jackson Avenue School was recently approved and is set to be completed in three phases. The board may also start plans to renovate Mineola Middle School, which is nearly 100 years old.

Margaret Ballantyne-Mannion, vice president of the board, agreed with other board members and pointed out that the plan may save money in the long term.

“If we can do all the Jackson work at one time, that is ultimately saving money because construction costs go up. If you delay something a year or two, it’ll be more expensive than doing it now,” Ballantyne-Mannion said. “It will benefit every kid in the district for many, many years.”

The board will expand upon the details of the budget more at next month’s meeting.

“We’ll be back again next month with some more meat on this bone about what projects we’ll do and what’s included in the budget. Right now, it’s a rollover budget,” Nagler said. “We’re keeping everything as-is, and we’ll have some curricular highlights and some equipment highlights and things of that nature.”

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