The Herricks Board of Education is hopeful that a bill drafted by state Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola) to financially penalize landlords who create illegal apartments will stop the practice in the Herricks school district.
“I am pleased and cautiously optimistic and I really appreciate Sen. Martins’ efforts,” said Jim Gounaris, Herrick school board vice president.
Herricks Superintendent of Schools John Bierwirth announced Martins’ proposed legislation at last Thursday night’s board meeting after receiving a copy of it that afternoon.
The bill in its current form would empower the school district or a municipality in a school district to bring legal action against a landlord who creates an “unapproved conversion” of a single-family or two-family house to recoup the expense of educating children in those living situations in district schools.
“I think it’s terrific. I hope that the Legislature would seriously consider it. I can’t imagine why anybody would be against it,” Bierwirth said.
The idea of targeting landlords for creating illicit living situations that lead to students improperly registered to attend schools in the district was raised by school trustees when Martins attended a board meeting last year.
Gounaris said he subsequently broached the idea of a law imposing fines on the landlords to recover the district’s costs of educating children living in the illicit apartments the landlords create at board workshop. He said school board attorney Lawrence Tenenbaum thought the idea was a viable one.
Bierwirth then contacted Martins and he said they discussed the concept of the bill now in draft form at length.
“This is our way to have some teeth and use this as a deterrent and to stop people in this situation right now,” Gounaris said. “We have nothing against the tenant. It’s not to penalize the tenant or the child in any way. It’s to penalize the landlord who has created the situation.”
Gounaris acknowledged that federal law compels the school district to educate children living within its boundaries regardless of their living situation.
The process of pursuing illegal residences would continue the relationship that has existed between the Herricks district and the Town of North Hempstead in identifying such residences. The Herricks district currently employs a private investigator to ferret out illegal living situations. The district typically informs the town, which takes action to remedy the illegal apartments.
“We work with the town. The determination as to whether an apartment is illegal is something done by the town,” Bierwirth said. “Once they made that determination, we would pursue action against the homeowner.”
He said there are no illegal apartment cases currently pending in the district, but he added, “We have had this situation in the past and my guess is we’ll have it again.”
Martins spokesman Joseph Rizza said Martins is currently seeking a sponsor for the bill in the state Assembly and is also seeking co-sponsors in the state Senate.
“This bill finally holds illegal housing landlords accountable for ripping off the community by forcing them to reimburse school taxpayers for costs associated with the illegal housing. It truly is a win-win – the district is able to marshal its limited resources and the taxpayers get a much deserved break,” Martins said in a statement on Friday. “Thanks to Dr. Bierwirth and the Herricks School Board, especially vice-president Jim Gounaris, for providing the spark in pushing this over the finish line.”
In other developments:
The Herricks school board trustees made it clear they’ve had enough of unfunded state mandates.
They unanimously passed a resolution calling on state legislators to “not approve any new end-of-year unfunded mandates that will impact municipal and school budgets which will result in cuts to important services, increase class sizes, cut programs already substantially reduced for the past three years and raise the amount of personnel who must be terminated.”
