At an unpublished special meeting held last Monday of the New Hyde Park/Garden City Park School Board the board concluded its review of the 1999-2000 proposed budget. The meeting was designed to address specific items that had been highlighted for further discussion during the previous budget session. As a result, the board agreed to keep pace with, but not accelerate the original 1996 Technology Plan concerning the purchase of computers for classrooms. Therefore, the budget will provide for the purchase of two computers for each first grade class and two additional computers for each second grade class. The musical instrument purchase and rental plan was revised. The line for purchasing and renting instruments for children just starting the music program was reduced by slightly more than 50 percent. As a result, the maintenance fee charged to parents will be increased accordingly. The budget line for Newsbriefs, the district's newsletter, was reduced by the cost of one issue. Therefore, two rather than three issues will be planned for each year. It was decided that a scarifier, a piece of equipment designed for use to maintain clay baseball infields, was not necessary to purchase for the upcoming year. In addition, the district will lease, not purchase, a vehicle needed for the Building and Grounds Department. The school board decided that they would not join the National School Boards Association for the coming year. They did, however, agree to revisit the need for and benefit to joining the national organization in future years. Based on past levels of expenditures, additional monies were cut from the rubbish removal line. All the revisions totaled almost $51,000 and reduced the projected average tax rate increase to 3.54 percent.

The proposed "Early Intervention Aides" assigned to all kindergarten classes in the district resulted in the longest discussion. According to Superintendent Joseph Rudaitis, the purpose of the aides would be to support the kindergarten instruction for all children and to give added support to the English As Second Language (ESL) children in kindergarten. At the end of the discussion the board left the proposed new aides in the budget.

The next meeting of the New Hyde Park/Garden City Park School Board will be held on April 15 at 8 p.m. at the Manor Oaks School on Hillside Avenue, New Hyde Park and at that time the board will vote to accept the budget that will be voted on in May.