Franklin Square district aims to stay under 2 percent tax levy increase

Franklin Square Union Free School District Superintendent Patrick Manley, left, and the district's Board of Education President Joe Armocida, spoke to residents on March 7 about the district's 2012-13 budget.

Fran Berkman/Herald

New York State aid to local school districts, from 2009 to (projected) 2012.

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At a Franklin Square Union Free School District board meeting on March 7, board members discussed a goal of keeping the 2012-13 budget’s tax levy increase at exactly 2 percent, below the district’s calculated cap of 2.11 percent.

“Our thinking is, if we could hit 2 percent this year, it makes sense to go to 2 percent,” said Joe Armocida, the Board of Education president. “Even though the allowable [levy increase] is 2.11, in this climate … people will read [about the cap], but at the same time that they’re reading it, when they come to vote, 2 percent will still be stuck in their head. They might see 2.11 and say, ‘Oh, they’re cheating me. Look, they’re going over.’”

Dennis McDonnell, chairman of the district’s Citizens Budget Advisory Committee, agreed. “With this 2 percent number that’s just hanging out there, which everybody’s aware of it without knowing what it means or anything,” McDonnell said, “we feel strongly that even going the slightest bit over would give the perception that we’re not being fiscally responsible or that we’re being difficult, or not doing the right thing by the community. When people are so irate with taxation, in with these tough economic times, that would get the sleeping tiger up off of his sofa to come out to vote against the budget … at 2.1, he’ll come up and vote against it; at 2 percent, he’ll stay sleeping on his sofa.”

The Franklin Square district’s preliminary 2012-13 budget has not yet been released, and, according to Theresa Hennessy, superintendent of finance and management, that’s because it is too difficult to finalize numbers when the state’s numbers haven’t been finalized.