Valley Stream District 30 budget would expand technology initiatives

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If District 30’s $34.8 million budget is passed, every student in the school district will soon have his or her own iPad or Chromebook to help the district replace outdated technologies in the classroom.

“It’s bringing the district into a 21st century model,” said Christopher Dillon, the assistant superintendent for business, adding that the devices would provide the teachers and students with another resource to help them learn.

The district would be able to complete its 1-to-1 device initiative district wide because it is expecting an increase in state aid. Next year, the school district expects to receive more than $7.7 million in state aid. This would be an increase of $246,554 over the current year.

Dillon also addressed concerns about excess revenue the district is expected to receive in property payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTs.

School officials and lawmakers have been working to address a property-tax surge in October that many have attributed to tax incentives issued to the Green Acres Mall by the Hempstead Town Industrial Development Agency in 2015 — and to prevent similar results in the future. The tax breaks reduced the mall’s tax payments by about $6.5 million last year and by a similar amount each year until 2022 as part of a payment in lieu of taxes agreement, or PILOT. Tax bills in school districts 13, 24 and 30 increased, on average, between $322 and $758 in October, drawing fury from unsuspecting residents. New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced last month that he would audit both the IDA and the school district.

Dillon estimated the district would receive an excess of $1.8 million in PILOT revenue in June — the second of two annual payments made by the mall to each affected entity. The first payment was made in October.

The district is set to receive excess PILOT revenue because it underestimated how much it would receive in the first year of the mall’s new payment schedule. A report commissioned by the IDA last year blamed sudden tax increases entirely on the district, claiming that it levied too much from local taxpayers. School officials have claimed the IDA never sent them the necessary details of the new payment schedule.

“They don’t commit to numbers, they don’t commit to schedules,” Dillon said. “They only commit to percentages.”

Dillon said that the promise of excess PILOT revenue in June was used to lower the tax levy, or the total revenue the school raises from taxpayers, for the district’s 2017-18 budget — despite the fact that the district has not yet received it.

The Nassau County guarantee — which holds the county liable for all property tax refunds from false assessments — does not currently apply to IDA-owned parcels under PILOT contracts. This shifts the legal responsibility to the school district in the event that contracted payments are not delivered.

The tax levy would decrease by about 15 percent over the current year if the budget were approved. The overall budget, however, would increase by more than $409,000 due to an increase in utility prices and an increase in the cost of employee benefits. Dillon dismissed the misconception that a negative tax levy automatically translates to lower property taxes. The tax levy for the current school year, for example, was an 11.94 percent decrease from 2015-16, and yet many residents’ property tax bills increased sharply.

Nassau County has four tax classes each with its own tax rate: Class 1 is for single-family homes, Class 2 is for apartments and condominiums, Class 3 is for utility company properties and Class 4 is for commercial properties. With these extra factors, the district cannot estimate how much a single tax payer will be billed next year.

“As a homeowner, last year you paid 48 cents of every dollar that was levied,” Dillon explained at a budget meeting in February. “This year you paid 63 cents of every dollar … Even though the district levied less money, the Class 1 homeowner ended up paying more.”

Superintendent Nicholas Stirling remained cautiously optimistic about PILOT agreements going forward.

“We hope that as you move into the next school year, that you won’t be hearing about PILOTS,” he said.