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A Few Clouds Elmont school district budget: an uphill battle
Local school districts have been working diligently over the past several months to develop budget proposals for 2012-13. The process has been complicated by spikes in mandated health care and pension costs as well as other mandates, most notably the state’s new 2 percent tax levy cap.
Asked whether the Elmont Union Free School District has ever faced a comparable budgeting challenge, Superintendent Al Harper said, “Not in my tenure. Not in the seven years I’ve been in this district.
According to Governor Cuomo’s 2012-13 budget proposal, Harper said, state aid to the district will decrease by $5,596. Although that is not a substantial drop, state aid is still insufficient, Harper added. Since the 2009-10 school year — before the state implemented its Budget Gap Elimination Adjustment as a result of the national economic crisis — state aid to the district has decreased by nearly $3.3 million.
“You have to pick up that decrease somewhere,” Harper said. “And we are trying to look at areas that won’t affect the children — in transportation, maybe, in collapsing some of the bus routes, with fuel, with LIPA.”
Specifically, he explained, the district has joined a consortium with several other districts in Nassau County, including Franklin Square and New Hyde Park-Garden City Park, to share bus routes and collectively purchase paper, fuel, oil and electricity, among other necessities.
“Some of the things we’re looking at now are greener, more fuel efficient buses,” Harper added, explaining that while these buses have been built for years, they’re now in service in Nassau County, and the district is weighing the relative costs and benefits of using them.
