At the Polls: Mixed Reviews on School Budgets

While Westhampton Beach high school chorus students practiced auditorium -- their voices ringing out loud and clear -- residents trickled into the district’s polling booths in a room behind the stage.

By 10: 30 a.m. a handful of residents, 23 exactly, had pulled a lever either in support or against that includes a 2.84 percent spending increase.

The residents who ventured out in the rain, stood around to chat for a while before heading their separate ways. One homeowner stopped to say she was proud to do her civic duty by casting her vote.

In East Quogue, residents were lining up to cast their votes and by 11:30 a.m. nearly 132 residents cast their ballots in the school’s gym.

One couple, heading into a voting booth, said they were disappointed with the budget.

The husband and wife, who wished not to be named, said they have a fourth grader in the East Quogue Elementary School, but said they simply could not support the budget, feeling that the , is too high.

At the Hampton Bays Middle School, more than one resident said that the district’s is too much to bear.

“It’s too high,” said Robert Mischke. “I think the district wastes too much money on managers, administration and substitute teachers.”

Mischke, who is on a fixed income, said he believes that in hard economic times, school districts should look to cut “unnecessary” items, like sports.

“They should focus on the three R’s, not on tennis,” he said and added that he believes the district spends too much money sending teachers to conferences and paying substitute teachers to replace them.

“It’s like they have two teachers for every classroom," he said.

As middle school students played football on a field across from the voting booths, Sara Jeane Stephani said, students “should pay to play” to help defray taxes.

“I hate the budget,” she said. “Hampton Bays residents pay more in taxes than any other district in Southampton.  I think all the schools in Southampton should be consolidated.”

Diane Berglin, whose has a child in the school district and whose husband is a teacher in the Hampton Bays Elementary School, said she was happy to vote yes on the budget.

“I did it for the kids,” she said.

By noon, 300 residents had voted on the Hampton Bays School budget.

Be sure to check back at Westhampton-Hampton Bays Patch for school budget and candidate results later on.