Schools
After Budget Defeat, Comsewogue Mulls Next Steps
Board of Education will meet to discuss what budget to adopt and put up for a vote on June 19.
It's back to the drawing board for Comsewogue School District as administrators must now come up with an alternative budget plan to present for a vote after with a needed supermajority of 60 percent of the vote.
The budget lost by just over 1 percent getting support from 58.7 percent of voters, only 33 individual votes shy of passing.
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According to Assistant Superintendent for Business, Susan Casali, the next budget vote will be June 19. Casali said that the Board of Education will decide which budget to present.
The board has already stated at public meetings they will present the property tax cap level budget of 2.6 percent with $2.9 million needed to be eliminated from the total budget.
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Board Member Lance Brown said that the board and administrators still have work to do to decide what to do next.
"The board will be meeting with the administration over the next few days to determine the exact makeup of the 2.6 budget," he said.
If that budget is ultimately defeated and the district is forced to implement a zero percent increase in the tax levy, then it would need to cut $4.4 million from the existing budget.
"And that would be quite devastating in terms of the many additional cuts that would need to be made and additional teachers that would need to be let go," he said.
In a previous presentation, Superintendent Joseph Rella proposed what cuts would need to be made under the 2.6 percent. Highlights include:
Reconfiguring the elementary school buildings into the Princeton Plan:
- The Princeton Plan calls for going from four grade K - 5 buildings to two grade K-2 buildings ( and ) and two grade 3-5 buildings ( and )
- Move all grade K-2 students from Boyle to Norwood and all grade 3-5 students from Norwood to Boyle
- Similarly, district will move all K-2 students from Terryville to Clinton and all grade 3-5 students from Clinton to Terryville
- Classes at 30 students
- Cancel all High School courses under 20 (22 sections)
- AP Physics, Government & Politics, Economics, Biology, Spanish, Italian
- Art, Lote, English, Business
Additional cuts include:
- Psychologist/Special Ed/Counselors
- Administrative/Civil Service
- Activity Buses (Late Runs)
- Review and extra help sessions
- Clubs
- Concerts
- Assistant Coaches/Athletics/Transport
- Security reduced
- In total the plan originally called for 35 positions to be cut
Princeton Plan Configuration
School
Grade
Sections
New
Scheduled
Class Size
Norwood
K
5
27.4
Norwood
1
5
27.4
Norwood
2
5
25.0
Boyle
3
5
23.6
Boyle
4
5
27.8
Boyle
5
5
24.4
School
Grade
Sections
New
Scheduled
Class Size
Clinton
K
6
26.2
Clinton
1
6
26.2
Clinton
2
6
23.7
Terryville
3
5
26.4
Terryville
4
7
25.1
Terryville
5
6
25.7
* Information from January and February 2012 Comsewogue School District Superintendent Budget presentations.
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