Farmingdale residents flocked to the polls on Tuesday, May 19 to vote for the 2015-16 budget and for three new board of trustee members. After counting the votes, it was concluded that the school district’s $157.4 million proposed budget was approved. The budget includes a .55 percent increase in spending over the current year and carries a 1.28 percent tax levy increase, which is within the state’s tax cap. The prepositions for Capital Reserve and Youth Council were approved, and incumbent Kathy Lively, Mario Espinosa and Anthony Giordano ran unopposed and were elected to the Farmingdale School Board.
During the regular Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, May 12, Assistant Superintendent Paul Defendini said, “We haven’t had any real negative feedback during all of the budget presentations that we’ve done. Everyone seems to be generally supportive of our efforts,” he said.
The vote and election this year did have a good turnout. After the vote, the results concluded proposition 1, the 2015-16 budget itself, was approved; 1,391 voted yes while 483 voted no.
The assistant superintendent noted the budget sustains the current crop of staff and programs within the district for the upcoming school year.
“The addition of the state-mandated tax cap has really forced us to craft revenue-based budgets over the last several years,” he said. “This has helped us to support our programs over the years while staying within the tax cap.”
Proposition 2, which covers the creation by the district of a Buildings and Facilities Capital Reserve Fund, was approved, as 1,401 voted yes, while 432 voted no. This preposition entails the establishment of a savings account from which Farmingdale Schools can draw funds from to cover the costs of various improvements to the district, including new roofs, heating systems, windows and other projects with the aim of increasing energy efficiency. Defendini noted that the improvements would essentially pay for themselves over time.
During the May 12 meeting, Defendini explained the Capital Reserve Fund itself would not exceed a maximum amount of $20 million over 10 years and it would not cost taxpayers a cent. It would be funded entirely from surplus dollars available at the end of each school year, as well as a transfer of the remaining balance from an existing Capital Reserve Fund.
“The best part about this is that this will come at no cost to the community whatsoever,” he said. “We will be making debt service payments every year, like you make on a mortgage, but the
improvements will save us more in energy than it’s costing us to pay for the debt service payments.”
Proposition 3, which covers the Farmingdale Youth Council Appropriation for the fiscal year 2015-16, was approved, as 1,363 voted yes and 384 voted no. The requisite amount will be raised by taxes from properties within the district.
And finally, proposition 4, which involved the elections of three prospective trustees to the Board of Education, took place. Anthony Giordano received 1,342 votes, Mario Espinosa received 1,229 votes, Kathy Lively (incumbent) received 1,360 votes and one write in candidate (Diana Seaman) received one vote. Lively, Espinosa and Giordano will serve three-year terms commencing on Wednesday, July 1 and expiring June 20, 2018.
