The East Williston Board of Education set the tax levy at $48.1 million, the 3.56 percent level projected when voters approved the $51.44 budget million for the 2011-12 school year by a nearly 2-to-1 margin in May.
The school board members disagreed with a recommendation of its financial advisory committee at last Wednesday night’s board meeting to put $600,000 of an $851,000 balance from the 2010-11 school district budget back into the general fund, and voted unanimously instead to put $544,000 back in the general fund instead.
Board president Mark Kamberg said the school board had “consistently said” it would restore $544,000 to the budget and he said he favored sticking to that projection.
“We all know we’re going to be penny pinching,” said Robert Freier, the school board vice president.
Board members and the finance committee were in agreement on putting the $544,000 back after meeting together during the prior week, but finance committee members said they had subsequently found other notes they had made supporting the $600,000 to reduce the tax levy.
Board members cited the uncertainty of the school district’s finances with the advent of a 2 percent tax cap in sticking to the $544,000 figure.
“It’s all up in the air where we’ll be next year,” said Jacqueline Fitzpatrick, assistant superintendent for business for the school district.
In June, a surplus of approximately $1.2 million was anticipated from the 2010-11 school budget. At the time the finance committee suggested putting $600,000 back in the general fund to reduce the tax levy.
But the board later learned the district might not receive $400,000 in state grants the board expected to have restored.
The district is still awaiting funding from the New York State Dormitory Authority for a playground at the North Side School and $100,000 for the renovation of the running track at the Wheatley School.
Originally, the district was expecting grants of $100,000 for the playground, $150,000 for the track renovation and repairs to the North Side School parking lot, $100,000 for repairs at the Willets Road School – completed last summer – and an additional $50,000 for the track renovation.
The grants were secured through former state Sen. Craig Johnson, but were left in limbo when Democrats still in control of the state Senate pulled funds for $8.5 million in project throughout the 7th Senate District after Johnson lost his seat to Mineola Mayor Jack Martins last year.
Martins has succeeded in getting partial restoration of the money.
“It all centers on the grants we didn’t get back. No way we’re getting the full amount yet. Martins has been able to get some of the money back, but we didn’t get all of it back,” said Al Goldstein, who heads the three-member volunteer finance committee.
“The paper work is in. We haven’t seen any money,” Freier said.
He agreed with Goldstein that the unfulfilled grants represent the primary reason for the difference between the anticipated $1.2 million and the actual $851,000 surplus in the 2010-11 budget.
“I guess it’s the biggest reason for the difference,” Freier said.
The $400,000 for the work completed, and the projects as yet incomplete, remain in the budget, according to Fitzpatrick.
“We only did the projects related to health and safety,” she said.
The district paid for the resurfacing of the North Side playground, but the East Williston Parent Teachers Organization contributed $77,175 to the district to pay for the new playground equipment itself, according to Fitzpatrick, who said the PTO had agreed to pick up costs of the project exceeding $100,000.
At this point, notwithstanding Martins’ efforts to restore the grants, Fitzpatrick said the district feels like its in a circular process.
“Nothing has been restored. It’s very loose. We did the same documents a year ago and we never saw the money,” she said.
On another financial front, East Williston Superintendent of Schools Lorna Lewis said the cost of implementing a new state-mandated annual professional performance review will cost the district approximately $50,000 in consultants’ fees next year.
“What this is marrying us to is $50,000 in unfunded mandates,” Lewis said, adding that the program would cost no school district less than $30,000 to meet the programs’ requirements for assessing teachers’ performances.
The East Williston School District will be the host district for a lunch for school district superintendents to discuss the issue with Martins and state Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel (D-Great Neck).
In her report, Lewis also criticized the state’s stringent four-level scale for evaluating results in the standardized mathematics and English language arts exams for students in grades three through eight.
“The state makes it almost impossible to be highly proficient,” Lewis said, noting that one incorrect answer by a third grader on an ELA test puts the student in the second highest proficiency level.
Results of those tests are to be part of the basis for evaluating teachers’ effectiveness.
In another development:
• The East Williston School Board is formally requesting support from the New York State School Boards Association to develop a uniform final course grade-weighting policy to applied to all state high schools. Administrators and board members are concerned that the inconsistencies in grade weighting among high schools put students in school district such as East Williston, where grade weighting has not been in practice, at a disadvantage when applying to colleges.
• Freier said a long-term deal for Honeywell to handle energy management at The Wheatley School was nearly submarined when a former school board member submitted an objection to the contract with the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Work is proceeding on replacing the school’s lights.
• New red lockers have been installed in the Wheatley School, where repairs to the Mo Schneider Tennis Courts at the Wheatley School were due to start last week.
Reach reporter Richard Tedesco by e-mail at rtedesco@theislandnow.com or by phone at 516.307.1045 x204
