The Farmingdale Board of Education last Wednesday set the 1999-2000 school tax levy at $61,307,800, rendering a 5.6824 percent and 7.990 percent average increase in the tax rate for Town of Oyster Bay and Town of Babylon property owners, respectively.

These tax rate increases are averages of the increases associated with all properties in each town - commercial and residential. In Oyster Bay, the tax rate increase for homeowners is 6.2637 percent. The tax rate increase for homeowners in Babylon is not yet known by the school district because figures needed to calculate it, known as base proportion rates for the town, have not yet been provided.

The increase in the residential Town of Oyster Bay tax rate was slightly lower than advertised in the school district's budget brochure, sent to taxpayers just before they went to the polls to vote on the budget in May. The brochure, which was produced before final figures on state aid, taxable assessed property valuation, property equalization rates and adjusted base proportion rates were in, estimated that the tax rate increase in Oyster Bay would be about 6.4 percent. An estimate on the tax rate increase for a Babylon home was not given in the brochure.

The actual tax rate increases for both towns were set after the information on property values and state aid were received. Each year, the equalization rates for each town, which is calculated based on the total value of property located within the district, has an impact on the tax rate increase for each town. The equalization rates for the two towns included in the district are: 0.0389 for Oyster Bay and 0.0257 for Babylon. The share of full value in each town are: Oyster Bay - 78.50394 percent, and Babylon - 21.49606 percent. State aid applied this year is about $15.2 million

The district's 1999-2000 budget is $80.3 million, and school officials arrived at the $61.3 million tax levy by applying $2,678,871 of the reserves from last year to revenues for this year. Last year's reserves, known as the fund balance, totalled $2,888,465. If the district had applied less of it, the tax levy would have been higher. If the entire fund balance had been applied, the tax levy would have been lower, but doing so is generally not considered financially prudent, because it would entail leaving no reserves.

In explaining his recommendation that the school board apply $2,678,871 of the fund balance, thereby rendering a tax rate increase of 6.2637 percent and 7.990 percent for Oyster Bay and Babylon, respectively, Dr. William J. Fanning, assistant superintendent of Farmingdale Schools, said, "We always strive to preserve our credibility, in other words to deliver what we said we were going to deliver. That's always been our primary objective. When we go out with a brochure, we make a projection, and we hope that we can deliver it. From then on, our intention is to do whatever we can to deliver it."