Days after the Manhasset School District’s proposed $89 million budget failed to reach its required supermajority vote, the Manhasset Board of Education invited residents Thursday to address their concerns about possible budget cuts in anticipation of a second vote June 18.
Board of Education President Carlo Prinzo, who moderated the discussion in the absence of Manhasset Superintendent of Schools Charles Cardillo, who was away attending his son’s wedding, said the board “hasn’t yet landed on any opinions” on which specific areas of the budget it would consider cutting.
Prinzo said the board wanted to first gauge the community’s interests before entering its next work session, which was announced as a May 30 town hall-style meeting.
“Part of what we wanted to do tonight is get a barometer of what people are thinking,” he said.
Manhasset was among six Long Island school districts seeking the supermajority vote whose budgets did not pass on May 21. A supermajority vote is required if a school district’s budget exceeds the state-mandated 2 percent tax levy cap.
The board of education must adopt an amended budget June 3.
Laurie Pandelakis, a retired teacher and school administrator who regularly speaks publicly on behalf of the Manhasset Proponents of School Accountability, a major opponent of the increases to the tax levy, asked why the district has concerns about the pension contribution costs if they can control those costs in negotiating teacher contracts.
“I just wanted to say that you say you don’t drive pensions, but in fact the negotiated salaries that you sign off on are the driver of the pensions, are they not?” Pandelakis asked.
Prinzo disagreed, replying, “We generally start our teachers off in the same place everybody else does. Once they’re in the system, as I’m sure you know, Mrs. Pandelakis, they just follow a grid,” Prinzo said. “I don’t mean this to offend anybody, but a teacher is a civil servant. It has a grid, it follows a box. You do this, you get that. So do we control the salaries? I’m not too sure I agree with what you just said.”
State-mandated pension contributions to the teachers retirement system were 16.25 percent higher than last year’s and have increased 262 percent since 2009-10. Contributions to the employee retirement system, which increased 20.90 percent since last year, have increased 299 percent since 2009-10.
Superintendent of Business Rosemary Johnson said pension contributions took up 78 percent of the budget that had been overturned, reflecting a $2 million increase in benefits from last year. But, she said, the numbers were out of the district’s control,
“The fact is, it’s human capital,” Johnson said. “Teachers teach our children. Custodians clean our buildings. Teachers assistants teach our students with special needs. That’s what happens in this district day in and day out.”
Johnson estimated that over the last four years, more than 80 percent of the district’s budget increases have come as a result of increases to state pension contributions.
To drive down the impact such increases would have on the tax levy, Johnson said the district refinanced its debt and utilized more than $8.5 million within its reserve funds.
“We have lived through the last four years with the district understanding that our families were under intense pressure,” Johnson said. “People had lost their jobs, unemployment was very high, people were losing their houses. What could we do to assist? We could put money toward the tax levy every single year and live to fight another day, and we did that year in and year out.”
Joanne Russo, who is the parent of a graduating senior, said the votes against the budget are reflective of a section of the community that only maintains the best interests solely of their own children, and not necessarily those who followed them in school.
“For those who are voting no to the budget, I say shame on them,” Russo said. “They reaped the benefit of their children attending the schools and then they turned their faces, some of them. They forget where their children have gone in life. I would like to echo that sentiment and have it echo throughout the community.”
Resident Carlyn Casey suggested the district needs to increase spending, to maintain the balance in education and pension costs in addition to ensuring that future Manhasset students get to enjoy the same experiences as their predecessors.
“I actually think we need to keep raising the taxes more,” she said. “Because of these mandates and pensions, we’re losing things that I grew up with. We don’t have the eighth grade trip or the fifth grade trip. We don’t have the foreign language program that the rest of Long Island has. There are things we lack here.”
Cardillo had said in the weeks leading up to the budget’s adoption April 17 that the board would do all it could to maintain the “4 As” of academics, athletics, the arts and activities, but if a second vote fails to achieve the supermajority vote, the board would consider cutting 11 full-time equivalent teacher positions from the elementary level, 10 full-time equivalent teacher positions from the secondary level, and eliminate all interscholastic athletic programs and other before- and after-school programs.
Resident Renne McMahon asked the board whether it would consider cutting elective courses “that aren’t as important as things in the core curriculum,” even briefly.
“I was just wondering if you were planning on going back to the departments and saying is there a way they can deliver what we have as an education product differently, instead of going and saying we have to eliminate a teacher position from every grade,” McMahon said. “Is there something more creative that can be done.”
In the past, the board has eliminated certain electives from its curriculum in efforts to cut the budget, but Johnson said the district “does not have this endless stream of electives that are outside the core subjects,” and that its entire curriculum must reflect the full range of student performance levels.
“Part of the dilemma is that we have certain New York State requirements that we must meet, including 22 credits, and not all of our students meet those 22 credits by taking a dozen AP credits,” Johnson said. “We have to weigh carefully the trickle-down effect of whatever we do on the ability for all of our children to graduate meet all of New York state’s standards for graduation and very, very carefully find that balance that we need to achieve while making reductions.”
Nick Pappas, a teacher in the Bellmore-Merrick school district, said he recently moved to Manhasset so that his children could attend one of the top school districts on Long Island.
In his Bellmore-Merrick classroom, Pappas said he has felt the effects of budget cuts in the last few years, as his AP biology class sizes have gradually increased from 19 students to 29.
With his oldest son about to begin kindergarten in the Manhasset School District in the fall, Pappas said he understands the board would have to make cuts that may be seen as unpopular within the community.
But, he said, he does not want to see the quality of the district’s academic programs lowered as a result.
“It might burn a little bit to take away something, but don’t take away academics,” he said. “That’s why we live here.”
