HUNTINGTON
Board Of Ed: It’s Gonna Hurt
Administration asked to prepare budget with 3.5 percent tax hike
By Danny Schrafel/dschrafel@longislandernews.com

“Okay. On with the good news.”

Gallows humor still intact, Huntington’s Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Management David Grackin summed up the state of the budget process in Huntington for 2010-2011. And the message resonating through the meeting was simple, yet stark – it’s going to be painful, staff levels will likely be impacted and class sizes could also grow as the district explores a 3.5 percent tax increase for its upcoming budget.

At their March 1 meeting, the school board reviewed four budget scenarios with 2, 3, 3.5 and 3.95 percent school portion tax increases. If spending levels roll over from the $104,814,259 2009-2010 budget, taxes would increase by 6.84 percent, bringing the budget to $110,835,051. With the school board requesting Superintendent Jay Finello and his staff explore a budget with a 3.5 percent tax hike, the district’s revenue would decrease by nearly $3 million from the benchmark rollover budget.

“These budgets include significant reductions in non-program services,” Finello said in opening remarks. “Since it would be difficult to take further reductions in these areas, we must realize reductions discussed tonight would primarily apply to programs, and therefore personnel.”

Grackin said Huntington is also expected to lose $315,000 in state aid based on Gov. David Paterson’s proposed budget cuts to close a looming $7.4-billion budget hole. The MTA payroll tax gobbles up another $200,000 in district money.

Board Vice President Emily Rogan said the board was looking for a realistic starting point for budget planning.

“As a board member with two kids in the district, I don’t want to live in a community where my schools have nothing,” she said. “The highest tax rate… I’m not comfortable with. We’re stuck in a tough situation.”

In the previous two budgets, Huntington enacted 3.52 and 1.84 percent increases in 2008-09 and 2009-2010, respectively, while cutting from overtime, substitute teachers, stipends for extra work, equipment and conferences, Grackin said. With that funding already gone, staff, educational programming and other areas officials have tried to avoid cutting are now in the crosshairs. Last year, staffing levels were untouched after the state tapped into American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding, better known as the federal stimulus package, to avoid proposed cuts to education funding.

“Nobody has put their hands up and been willing to take a pay freeze,” trustee John Paci III said. “Last year we were bailed out by the Fed and we did not cut a teacher… this year, it’s impossible unless we’re willing to accept a 6 percent [tax increase].”

The board passed on the 2 and 3 percent models, saying they would have too devastating an impact on the district’s programming, and ultimately, the students.

“One of the things you had stated when we had requested a 2 percent tax rate increase budget, I think your words were, ‘you won’t even recognize the district,’” school board President Bill Dwyer said to Finello.

“Anything lower than 3.5 percent, it’s a disaster,” Paci said. “At 3.5 percent, it’s still a disaster, but it’s a good starting point.”

Residents and board members called for teachers and staff to take pay freezes, furloughs and further concessions to ease the budgetary pain in contractually bound expenses, and also considered increasing the distance a student must live from a school to be eligible for busing services, but that would not offer immediate relief – it would have to be adopted in a referendum by taxpayers.

“We have no mandate relief. We are getting cuts and we’re not getting mandate relief,” board vice president Emily Rogan said. “We’re not getting help in those areas. We’re mandated to transport all kids and there’s no relief there.”

If the budget fails to pass with voters in May, the district’s situation goes from bad to catastrophic, officials said. Under an austerity budget, Huntington schools would have to cut hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending from last year’s budget to comply.

“In 2009, the average number was negative .4 percent,” Grackin said. “We’ve been using the same model for 10, 11 years and it’s the first time the CPI has been less than zero… that’s where the economy is.”

Huntington school administrators will present a budget model using a 3.5 percent tax increase at their March 15 meeting.