The Hicksville School District presented its proposed 1999-2000 budget at a special meeting in the auditorium of the Hicksville High School earlier this week. The budget, which proposes a $3.1 million increase, is not expected to pack the punch that last year's $2.7 million increase did.

This year's tax rate is estimated to increase 1.99 percent as opposed to last year's 5.53 percent. The 1998-99 rate increase was subsequently further increased to over 10 percent after the county successfully appealed tax information from the state that is used in computing the school tax rate.

According to Dr. Edward Finn, superintendent of Hicksville School District, there are several factors contributing to the moderate tax rate increase in comparison to last year's. He stated that the tax rate increase is dependent on several key areas: "the amount of money that the district is asking to be levied by taxes; that amount gets worked on by assessed valuation and adjusted base proportions."

The assessed valuations and the base proportions that the district used in computing this year's estimated tax rate contributed towards lessening the burden to be carried by the homeowners. Last year assessed valuations were down and adjusted base proportions were up, where as this year the assessed valuations were up and the base proportions number was down.

Dr. Finn also added that the monies in the Fund Balance, money from last year's budget surplus that is returned to the taxpayers, is greater than last year. Last year only $325,000 was appropriated to the budget whereas this year the district is appropriating $850,000.

"In a sense that [money] becomes an added revenue to the budget so it decreases the amount of money that you have to raise by taxes," said Finn.

Dr. Finn also stated that he does not expect any type of dramatic shift in these numbers, as it did last year when the county appealed the assessed valuations and the base proportion. There is no pending litigation this year concerning the estimated assessments and base proportions. They were presented to the board by May 1, unlike a year ago when the district was forced to use the numbers from the previous year.

Residents can vote on the 1999-2000 budget on Tuesday, May 18 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.