Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Stephen Valente spoke about the 2015-16 school budget at the most recent Oyster Bay-East Norwich Board of Education meeting. He said that the budget-to-budget increase is the lowest that it has been in 16 years. The 2015-16 proposed expenditure budget is $55,326,318, which is an increase of 1.37 percent from the previous school budget.
The total budget number increase is $747,840 with the increase coming in the budget areas of government mandated voting machines, technology equipment, high school summer school and athletics crew and football.
The tax levy limit sent down from the state for the 2015-16 budget is 1.68 percent. Valente rolled out a preliminary budget that only asks for a 1.37 percent tax levy. The board unanimously agreed that they would stay within the tax levy limit. The 2015-16 estimated tax levy is $51,285,998.
“The budget that will be voted on in May will come in under the tax levy limit without impacting the educational programs in place,” said Valente.
Valente added that the district was still awaiting the State Aid figures.
“The Governor is expected to release his figures soon, so we are not sure how much State Aid we will be getting,” said Valente, “although it is traditionally low comparatively to other districts because we are considered a high wealth district.”
The good news is that the district can expect to see a little more state aid this year, Valente said; however, the bad news is that there are more unfunded mandates from the state coming down in regards to Annual Professional Performance Reviews (APPR) for teachers and principals.
“The district is going to have to hire outside assessors for our APPR program,” said Valente.
The next school board meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 21, when the board is expected to hold a budget review, discuss the fund balance projection and adopt the 2015-16 budget.
