Both the Jericho School District and Syosset Central School Districts have crafted budgets below the state-mandated tax cap, but only the former did so without increasing the tax levy, while the latter only increased it slightly.
At Jericho, voters will be voting on a $121 million budget that lowers expenditures and demonstrates a 0 percent tax levy increase on property taxes. That budget also proposes to spend $16 million in capital reserve dollars to upgrade district safety features and renovate various district resources. In Syosset, the district put forth a budget of $219.8 million that increased the tax levy .14 percent—the district’s lowest increase in 26 years.
The Jericho School District said this year’s budget proposal maintained the same programming and did not reduce anything that would impact students. Some of the upgrades, the district said, included the additions of more than 300 Chromebooks, 270 iPads, 255 desktop computer replacements, 35 laptop computers, new projectors, smartboards and more.
As for the district’s open board of education seats, Vice President Joseph Lorintz was the lone candidate to submit his name for the one open seat on the board.
Syosset’s budget proposal celebrated an increase in state education funding by to the tune of $1.7 million, thanks to New York’s restoration of Gap Elimination Adjustment funding.
State school aid was projected to increase to almost $25 billion overall—and Long Island was slated to get $3 billion of that. The Syosset district said the funding would help allow it to continue investing in its college-readiness virtual enterprise program, which provides students with training in entrepreneurship, global business, problem solving, communication and personal finance. Three open seats will be up for a vote on the Syosset Board of Education, with Rob Gershon, Tracy Frankel and Susan Parker in the running. The vote will also feature Reid Goldsmith, who is running for the Syosset Public Library board of trustees.
The vote for both budgets and school board trustee elections will be on Tuesday, May 17, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Jericho voting will take place at the middle school and high school gyms, and Syosset voting will take place at Robbins Lane Elementary School, H.B. Thompson Middle School and Syosset High School.
