Manhasset Board of Education Trustee Carlo Prinzo was unable to vote in the Tuesday election in which the district’s $90,389,627 budget was approved and he and Ann Marie Curd received another three-year term.
Instead, Prinzo was hospitalized last week with a bleeding ulcer that required nine blood transfusions and put him into a coma for five days, he said.
“It’s amazing that your life could be in the hands of total strangers like that,” he said. “Those guys are amazing. It’s just kind of wild, the reality of it. I’m finding it’s just kind of wild.”
He later learned the budget passed 1,618 to 612 — or 72.56 percent of the vote — and that he received 1,499 votes in his re-election. Curd received 1,617 votes.
“I thought the 72 percent was a great showing of community support of what the school budget was,” said Prinzo, a 21-year Manhasset resident with two hildren in the school district, one who graduated in 2013 and another currently enrolled.
“We worked very hard to squeeze everything we were able to squeeze under the tax cap,” he added. “I’m very pleased.”
First introduced in early March and adopted by the board in mid April, the budget carries a 2.79 percent year-to-year spending increase and $82,872,705 total tax levy, meeting the district’s allowable 2.52 percent levy limit.
Administrators and Board of Education trustees have said the budget enables the district to continue its restoration of courses, extracurricular activities and teachers lost by a 2013-14 budget vote that unsuccessfully sought to breach the state tax cap.
The budget provides for the hiring of 12 teachers and the implementation of several new courses at the elementary and secondary levels to meet student demand and enrollment projections in future years, officials said.
“We are extremely pleased that our community for the third consecutive year has provided ‘yes’ votes of 72 percent or greater,” Manhasset school Superintendent Charles Cardillo said. “This particular budget was a very student-friendly budget, with greater opportunity for students of all ages.”
Though he said he was grateful to be re-elected for another term, Prinzo said he would like to see the parents of younger students within the district seek election to the school board as “a new generation” of trustees.
“We need some third grade parents to say i want to get involved. There’s a lot of parents involved in a lot of stuff, but when it comes to the board, not so much,” he said. “I guess I would like to see that next generation of parents that have kids rising through the system that are dealing with all the issues young parents deal with be with us at the table.”
In addition to restoring class sections of various electives, as well as class sizes that align with state averages, Manhasset plans to offer new elective courses in Advanced Creative Writing, Journalism, Latin I, Mandarin Chinese I, Multivariable Calculus, advanced placement-level Computer Science and Accounting, advanced placement-level Studio Art, Architectural Drawing, Drawing, Electronic Keyboarding, Introduction to Business, advanced placement-level Environmental Science, Forensics, Criminal Civil Law and Introduction to Psychology.
“The headline here is that the community continues to provide a high level of support, which is reflective of why we continue to be among the premier school districts in the country,” Cardillo said.
Manhasset has also proposed an intramural athletics program at the middle school level, which officials said may take a few years to cultivate due to field constraints with upcoming renovations to Memorial Field and other scheduling conflicts.
Manhasset will receive $4.2 million in state aid in 2015-16, a $397,000 increase from 2014-15, which includes the restoration of $227,000 the district lost in past years as a result of the state’s gap elimination adjustment program.
