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Mostly Cloudy West Hempstead school district OKs 2012-13 budget
School board approves $55.2M spending plan
The West Hempstead Board of Education adopted a $55.2 million 2012-13 draft spending plan last week — an increase of more than $700,000, or 1.46 percent, over the current budget. The tax levy increase is 2.58 percent.
The plan, according to Superintendent John Hogan, will maintain all academic programs, clubs and sports, and class sizes will remain the same. No faculty, Hogan said, will be laid off based on budgetary needs.
At the April 17 Board of Education meeting, the board voted 5-2 to approve the budget. Trustees Cynthia DiMiceli and Rudolf Schindler opposed the plan.
Hogan and Deputy Superintendent Richard Cunningham said that school officials created a “prudent” budget as the district contends with increasing mandated costs such as health insurance premiums, pension contributions and other expenses.
The district will use $1.47 million in reserves and fund balance to cover employee retirement system liability and unemployment costs, Cunningham said.
Originally, the tax levy increase was set at 3.06 percent, he explained, but at the March 27 budget workshop, officials announced that they had reduced it to 2.9 percent. “We used about $101,000 more in reserves to offset the tax increase,” Cunningham said.
Then, he added, with the recent addition of $172,000 in state aid in early April, the administration reduced the increase again, to 2.58 percent. Cunningham explained that nearly $41 million will be raised through property taxes.
The tax levy increase falls below the cap implemented by New York state, he added.
At the April 17 meeting, school officials noted that they had made additional adjustments to the budget based on community feedback. They allocated funds for the implementation of a wireless internet network, which will cost $100,000 per year and be financed over three years. Intramural programs, including indoor basketball, football and soccer, were restored at the George Washington and Cornwell Avenue elementary schools and in the sixth grade at the middle school.
