To fund or not to fund

Calling for legislative relief, New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli has said that many Long Island school districts — including Rockville Centre — have “overfunded” their Employee Benefits and Accrued Liability Reserve funds. He says districts should be able to use that extra money that they can’t now touch, for tax relief. The EBALR is used to pay eligible school district employees for accrued sick and leave time when they retire. DiNapoli has said that Rockville Centre is overfunded by $1,669, 278.

But Robert Bartels, Rockville Centre’s assistant superintendent for business, along with the district’s external auditors, might beg to differ. Bartels says the district has actually “fully funded” its EBALR, meaning that the nearly $2 million it set aside in the 2009-10 spending plan is there to be paid out if everybody who is eligible to retire actually retires at the same time.

Bartels points out that there is no legal limit or formula for the fund. There used to be lines in the district’s budget to pay for these retiree expenses, he said, and over the past six years, in accordance with auditor and state recommendations, this reserve has been established to pay these expenses without incurring additional budget costs. There are no longer amounts in the budget for these expenses. Rockville Centre’s undesignated reserve stood at just over 3 percent of budget as of June 30, 2009 — a figure that Bartels said is well below the 4 percent funded by the great majority of school districts. In addition, he said, Rockville Centre’s total fund balance as a percentage of its budget is about 9 percent — also well below the average 17 percent for all Nassau County school districts (based on the 2009-10 Property Tax Report Card data filed with the State Education Department).