Voters overwhelmingly approved Herricks school district’s $108.2 million budget proposal Tuesday in a 1,298-495 vote.
A second proposition to create a capital reserve passed 1090-367, and school board incumbents Nancy Feinstein and Brian Hassan, who both ran unopposed, were re-elected with 1,286 and 1025 votes, respectively.
“It is a good budget, and the reserve will help deal with needed capital projects in a more timely fashion and reduce the need for bond issues,” Herricks Superintendent John Bierwirth said in an email.
The adopted budget includes funds to restore 12 teaching positions cut during the economic downturn and reinstitute the elementary school class-size caps that were suspended four years ago, school officials said.
“I hope [residents] feels that we are moving in the right direction,” Bierwirth said.
The $108.2 million budget represents a 0.6 percent increase in spending, about $650,000, from the 2015-16 budget.
Bierwirth and Board of Education President James Gounaris both said leading up to the vote that restoring the class-size caps has been a priority for the district.
Kindergarten classes would now be capped at 22 students, first to third grades would be capped at 25 students, and grades four and five would be capped at 27 students.
“It was really nice to be able to restore at least some of the things we’ve had to cut over the last four years,” Bierwirth said about the proposed budget in a previous interview. “First and foremost [we wanted to] get class sizes back down.”
A decrease in aid and ballooning employee benefit costs forced the district to cut nearly 100 positions during the recession.
The capital reserve allows the district to transfer leftover money at the end of the fiscal year into a fund that could be used for infrastructure projects and improvements to help the district avoid borrowing or bonding. The approved reserve has a 10-year life span and a $5 million cap.
“Instead of waiting for something to become irreparable and, thereby, become eligible to be replaced on an emergency basis or…put out a bond, the district would be able to tap the reserve,” Bierwirth said in a memo of budget recommendations.
Feinstein and Brian Hassan both ran unopposed for re-election to the Board of Education.
Feinstein, the mother of two children at Herricks High School and board vice president, was first elected three years ago, also in an uncontested election.
Feinstein coaches the Center Street School team for Girls on the Run, a non-competitive running program that trains girls for a 5K run and focuses on social and life lessons.
“It’s really one of the best programs that I’ve seen,” she said.
Going into next term, she said, she would like to help oversee the transition of the district’s incoming superintendent. Bierwirth retires this summer.
Hassan, who has daughters in the middle and high schools, also won an uncontested seat three years ago.
Several years before he joined the board, Hassan, a PSEG employee, helped the district transition to dual-fuel technology, allowing it to operate on the cheaper of oil or natural gas.
Herricks director of facilities James Brown said the change saves the district between $100,000 and $125,000 per year and reduces emissions.
“When oil was skyrocketing, it was saving us quite a lot of money,” Brown said. “It really helped the school district tremendously, at it was through [Hassan’s] intercession on our behalf that that really happened.”
