Massapequa BOE Officially Adopts 2013-2014 Budget

This story was posted by Edward Robinson. It was written and reported by Christopher Boyle

The Massapequa School District unanimously voted to adopt its official 2013-2014 budget this week; its ultimate fate is now in the hands of an upcoming public vote on May 21.

Deputy Superintendent Alan  Adcock discussed the long, hard road to crafting next year’s budget, citing the trials of cuts to state aid, countless unfunded mandates, and the tax cap.

“The spending plan we are proposing, and asking the administration to adopt tonight, indicates a solid spending plan and an efficient spending plan,” he said. “The budget preserves the services for our students for the 2013-2014 school year.”

The 2013-2014 budget comes in at $185,809,130, a 1.49 percent increase over the previous year’s budget of $183,073,234. The Tax Levy is right at the New York State-allowed cap of 3.19 percent.

“Our budget increase of only 1.49 percent is one of the lowest in Nassau and Suffolk Counties,” Adcock said. “In fact, if it wasn’t for the huge increases in staff health care, teacher retirement, and the Nassau County Tax Certiorari, our budget probably would have been lower than last year’s.”

In addition, several staff members, including 35 teachers, were laid off, although Adcock maintained that this reflected lowered student enrollment rates next year more than any budgetary issues.

Superintendent  Charles Sulc, who will be retiring at the end of the current school year, praised the final district budget that he will be overseeing in his educational career.

“This year we kept all of our programs in our budget...only a few items are coming out of our budget next year,” he said. “It’s a credit to the Board of Education that we have all of our programs intact, which is absolutely critical. We have far too much success that we want to maintain, and anything that we have to do repeat that success, we will do.”

The public vote on the 2013-2014 budget will be held on May 21 at Massapequa High School from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Sulc also addressed a recent frightening evacuation of students and staff that had taken place at Unqua Elementary School earlier this week.

“We had a bomb scare at Unqua...when we learned that there might be a bomb in the building, we immediately implemented our emergency procedures and moved the children out,” he said. “The children were moved to Berner Middle School...they were fed lunch there, they watched Charlotte’s Web, and when we got clearance, were able to bring the children back.”

Sulc stressed that the situation was addressed and resolved as quickly as possible due to the strong efforts of Massapequa school staff and the Nassau County Police Department, who thoroughly investigated the Unqua building using manpower and bomb-sniffing dogs before deeming the bomb threat a hoax and declaring the scene safe.

“Our communication with the police was at the very highest level,” he said. “We also want to thank the staff of Unqua and Berner for their efforts...people were very complimentary on how we handled this. Our primary concern is the health, safety, well-being of our students.”