The Levittown School District is still more than $800,000 away from presenting a balanced budget for the 2026-2027 school year, district officials said at a Wednesday, March 11, Board of Education meeting.
Michael Fabiano, the district’s assistant superintendent for business and finance, said the district has begun implimenting recomendations received from the state comptroller’s office as it moves its budget process along.
School district officials proposed a $289.3 million budget for the 2026-’27 school year at the start of the budget process in January.
Fabiano said the total proposal has decreased to $286,714,117, but the district is still roughly $870,000 away from having a balanced proposed budget.
“We need to shave about $870,000 off of aproporiations, find $870,000 of additional revenues, or some combination of that,” he said.
Fabiano said he isn’t worried and that the district is likely to propose a $285,845,181 balance budget before it is adopted.
Administrators pointed to armed security, transportation, special education and health insurance costs as the main budget drivers.
The district said the 2026-2027 budget does not plan for class size increases, has career exploration courses for eighth graders, adds an elementary instructional coach, adds middle school flag football, includes instructional space updates, enhances library resourses and expands high school academic choices and pathways.
According to a calculation by Schneps Media Long Island, based on the 2026-2027 budget presented at the March 11 meeting, divided by the total student population, which was 7,061 during the 2024-2025 school year, the district will spend roughly $40,605.31 per pupil. This calculation does not reflect how the state calculates its aid package for the school system.
Fabiano said the district submitted a 2.59% tax levy limit to the state by the March 1 deadline, saying the district wants to have a tax levy below 2%.
He said the district’s 1.98% tax levy increase is lower than the county’s average of 2.41%.
Fabiano said the district expects to receive $98,566,816 in state aid, noting the district continues to get large increases. The district is expecting to get a 9.6% increase and has averaged a 10.4% annual increase in state aid over the last 10 years.
Fabiano said the district plans to decrease its appropriated fund balance by $1.4 million to $7.9 million. He said the $1.4 million reduction will be appropriated as part of the district’s $15 million capital reserve expenditure proposition on the May 19 ballot.
The district plans to propose a $15 million capital reserve expenditure proposition for its ballot in May, which will be comprised of $4.6 million from the 2023 capital reserve, $3 from the district’s tax reduction reserve, $3 million from revenues received in excess of the budget and $4 million in expenditures below appropriations. The district said this proposition will carry no additional tax to Levittown residents.
Dawn Wang, the district’s director of pupil services, said “we are on a journey from surviving to thriving” when discussing growth in the department during a different presentation at Wednesday’s meeting.
She said the district has recently developed a district-wide special education digital procedures and forms manual and created professional development strategies for staff.
Wang said the district plans to spend $17,121,128.85 on the department of pupil services for the 2026-2027 school year, marking a 1.43% increase from the current budget.
The Board of Education will adopt the district’s proposed budget at its next meeting on Wednesday, March 25.
