Last evening (Aug. 2), our state legislators passed a "bare-bones" budget, which was designed not to advance the interests of the citizens of the state but to avoid the embarrassment of setting another record for a late state budget. Seventeen years running, New York's budgets have been late. This one, a stripped down sorry excuse for an exercise in governance, missed the record by two days. At least the prior Aug. 4 record budget, while late, was complete. This one is both late and anemic.

Lest you forget, the constitutional date for a state budget is April 2, not June, July, or August.

This "bare-bones" budget was, in part, driven by the need for school districts in Nassau County to set their tax levies (and hence derive the tax rate) with accurate knowledge of what their expected State Aid Revenues will be. Aside from Glen Cove (which is a special case) Nassau school districts need to certify their tax levies by Aug. 15. Elsewhere in the state, that requirement occurs later.

Glen Cove, as you'll have noted from the receipt of school tax bills earlier this week, must set its levy very early. If the governor and legislature do their jobs and there is a timely budget (April 1), there is ample time to use "real" school aid data in fixing the local levy. If, as has been the case for almost two decades, the state budget is late, the Glen Cove School Ddistrict must estimate state aid based on historical data and reading the tea leaves of the separate (but wildly different) budget proposals of the governor, the Assembly and the Senate. To the district's credit, this usually works out.

To return to the "bare-bones" budget, buried within that document is a statewide reduction of $12,565,508 in Special Aid to Small City School Districts (Hurd Aid). In the case of Glen Cove, this, if uncorrected, will result in a reduction in this one aid category of $321,089. Let me say this again - Glen Cove loses $321,089.

In the past, our legislators have been proactive in assuring that this type of reduction (while often proposed early in the budget process) is rejected by the final budget. This year, the reduction is in place. This Hurd Aid reduction is but one example of a budget that grossly underfunds schools (at up to $1.1 billion by some estimates) in a broad range of aid categories.

The broadness of the pain (school aid, health care, conservation and the environment, welfare-to-work, and economic development) of this budget should build pressure for the governor and the Legislature to return to the table and develop supplemental budgets addressing the critical failings. It is in this process that items like the Hurd Aid shortfall must be addressed.

Voters need to understand that the state budget process directly affects their pocketbooks. This is not theoretical! Every dollar of state aid which is denied or withdrawn from local school districts needs to be made up by bludgeoning the local taxpayer. Local property taxes increase as state aid revenues decrease.

We need to be sure our voices are raised with our legislators demanding that the shortfalls in this bare-bones budget be fixed as soon as possible. Join with me in contacting Governor Pataki, Senator Marcellino, and Assemblyman Sidikman to press for a supplemental budget that works for Glen Cove.

Bob Lupinskie