New State Aid Numbers In; School Districts Getting More than Anticipated

School districts in Western Southampton learned Wednesday night that state officials have restored $270 million in state aid for education.  For local school districts, that means that they will be getting more in state-aid than they originally anticipated under.

Hampton Bays and Westhampton Beach School Districts are looking at 7.2 percent more in state-aid than expected; Quogue at 9.07 percent; East Quogue at 4.99 percent; and Remsenburg/Speonk at 7.95 percent.

The news came in the form of a final budget vote in Albany that prevailed over Cuomo’s projected $1.9 billion education cut to school districts across New York State.

“This final budget agreement demonstrates the legislature’s continuing commitment to education, even during a fiscal crisis,” said Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr, I-Sag Harbor. “Fairness was restored to Long Island.”

The governor’s original proposal sent school district officials scrambling to make up the lost funding by working to make budget cuts.  In Westhampton Beach, for example, the district proposed cutting an program that drew sharp criticism from students, parents and teachers.

While the districts are now looking at getting additional funds in state-aid, they are all still getting less than they had last year.

For example, Larry Luce, of the Hampton Bays School District's business office, says that even with $61,793 more than expected in state-aid, the district is still looking at a year-to year state aid cut of 14 percent.

"This impacts both our tax levy and the tax rate," said Luce.  "If we had a zero budget increase just the change in aid would raise tax rate by 2.3 percent or approximately $0.25 per $1,000 assessed value."

The same tune is expected to be sung by Hampton Bays' neighboring school districts since all of the districts are reporting that their contract and health benefit budget lines have increased over the last budget cycle.

In the Westhampton Beach School District, which is looking at getting $33,000 additionally under the new state budget numbers,  alone are up 3.1 percent over the last budget.

Westhampton Beach officials say they intend to adopt a tentative budget on Monday night.