The Mineola School District saw a 13.28 percent increase in New York State aid after the state legislature enacted its budget last week. Long Island received more than $157 million in aid alone, the most in seven years.
“[The increase] was based on our prior year’s spending,” Assistant Superintendent Jack Waters said. “It was due an increase based on how we spent in the past. It wasn’t from the largess of the governor and the assembly that we got an increase.”
Mineola will receive $5,985,238 in aid, a $701,857 increase from 2014-15. Mineola received an increase of $30,000 in foundation aid, a 0.8 percent increase from last year. The minimum in the state is 0.37.
New York State announced a budget deal on Monday, March 30, with a school aid increase of nearly $1.6 billion. The state agreed to implement new ethics laws, put teacher evaluations in the control of a state agency and raised teacher tenure eligibility from three to four years. The new evaluation plan will be put in by June 30.
“We take our total state aid number and use that and use it, like anything else, as a basis to determine what our maximum budget could be,” Waters said. “We don’t look at it as if we get more building aid, what does it do towards adding to our capital reserve? I doubt many districts do that.”
Nearby East Williston School District received $2,734,602, a $216,688 uptick from last year.
