East Rockaway School District addresses 2017-18 budget

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The East Rockaway School District held its first meeting to discuss its 2017-18 budget on Feb. 14 at East Rockaway Junior-Senior High School.

Jacqueline Scrio, the district’s assistant superintendent for finance and operations, said the consumer price index is set at 1.26 percent, which means East Rockaway’s preliminary tax levy increase is up .82 percent to $236,884.

Scrio also went over the proposed changes that Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to implement for next school year. She explained that the district would see a decrease of over $3,000 in state aid because one of its bond projects is paid off.

Cuomo also proposed the elimination of Foundation Aid, which is money provided from the New York state budget to support public school districts. It was frozen in 2008 due to the bad economy, and Cuomo said he wants to replace it with a new formula.

“It would have given us $1.1 million in aid,” Scrio explained, “because of our combined wealth ratio, our enrollment and where we stand financially.” Scrio said Cuomo also wants to implement his own cap on school aid, but she does not believe it will pass because it would take away input from legislators.

In her presentation, Scrio said the school usually allocates $75,000 for capital projects, but she wants to use $159,126 for 2017-18 only. She explained that the district has $84,126 from a bond interest balance and unspent bond funds, and suggested that the district should add that figure to its capital projects money.

Scrio said the district also looks to continue its one-to-one computing initiative to provide every student with a tablet, and will spend at least $200,000 on technology projects in 2017-18.

“The one-to-one computing initiative is key,” Scrio said. “We’ve done four grades already, so there are two more grades to roll out next year. That is a must-have.”

When the Board of Education holds its next budget meeting on March 14, Scrio will go through an expenditure review. “I anticipate giving them my proposed budget for 2017-18,” she said. “And giving them a trend on where we’ve been for the past few years to see what’s going up and what’s going down.”