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Overcast School budgeting made simple?
Hewlett-Woodmere and Lawrence school district fiscal plans are evolving as meetings take place
Since the beginning of the school year, and for the uninitiated that is actually July 1, not a day in September, districts have been reviewing, turning over and working on their next operating budget.
In Hewlett-Woodmere, the first budget meeting was held on Oct. 4. Since then, district officials led by Assistant Superintendent for Business Louis Frontario have continuously met to discuss the 2018-19 fiscal plan. The current budget is $116.5 million.
“Community members are welcome to attend all budget development meetings,” Frontario said, adding that along with those meetings, residents can weigh in at the public budget forum on March 27 (see list of meetings).
In Lawrence, Assistant Superintendent for Business and Operations Jeremy Feder said: “The budget is in the process of being reviewed, a public meeting will be in March, specific details will be forthcoming.” The district is presently operating under a $100.78 million fiscal plan.
Atlantic Beach resident Richard Libbey said he would like to see those details, especially the cost of student programs, under the state mandated 2 percent tax cap. “Why are the costs so obfuscated with all the expense lines and groupings that are all over the place, and the real cost of all the mandated programs by the federal and state governments which should be lined up with what is received back in aid funds to provide these additional services?”
Another Lawrence School District resident, Ilyassha Shivers, of Inwood, noted that the budget passes after “much scrutiny” but also believes that after the district closed and sold two schools and leases a third “that there would be some relief pass along to the taxpayers” and like Libbey said there needs to be more transparency.
Remembering that the third Tuesday in May, this year May 15, is also the day that residents voted on Board of Education trustees, Shivers noted this concern. “The community has been very concerned about the direction this board is taking our district,” he said. “There needs to be different voices. When you have everyone singing in the same key you will never have harmony.”
