The Board of Education for the Great Neck Public Schools is proposing a budget of $241.4 million for the tax year 2020-2021.
The previous year’s budget was $234.4 million and if the $7 million dollar increase gets approved by the voters, it would set the record for the steepest jump ever in the district’s 206-year history, bizarrely, occurring during a shutdown.
Due to the concerns about the spread of coronavirus, the residents will be receiving absentee ballots in the mail and will decide how to vote on the proposed budget and mail back the ballots to the district.
The timing for the historically steepest budget hike is quite challenging to the residents.
Many are economically plagued from the different causes. Some have substantial loss of income from the COVID-19 pandemic. Many are subjected to tax increase as a result of the Nassau County Property Reassessment. Most are affected by the new federal limitation for tax deductibility ($10,000 on the income tax.)
The proposed budget has stipulated an $8 million aid for New York State while the State has an unprecedented $13 billion budget deficit due to the pandemic. This escalates the issues even further. Predictively the state will cut out a good chunk of the $8 million aid due to its shortage.
As a result, the district is going to use the reserves which corresponds to even higher future tax burdens on the residents.
Other public institutions, however, were more sensitive to the COVID-19 economic climate by decreasing their budgets. For instance the Great Neck Library proposed a reduction of 0.61% from the previous year ($9.8M to $9.72M).
The steep budget hike is greatly attributed to the outside transportation contracts and their unions by the budgeteers.
If the residents vote against the current proposed budget, the board of education would have to propose another budget for vote, hopefully, lower than the previous year’s budget for a better chance of approval by the residents.
Yet, if the budget doesn’t get approved for the second and third times, the previous year’s budget would be utilized which is also referred to the austerity budget.
The budgeteers would reallocate the expenses and some would receive less than expected. It doesn’t seem to be so detrimental to any, especially in this economic climate, other than the egos of the union negotiators.
Eli Hematian
Great Neck
