The budget proposed by Governor George Pataki does not show a significant increase in state aid allotted to the Levittown school district and actually shows a decrease in aid to Island Trees as compared to last year's budget.

According to Herman Sirois, superintendent of the Levittown School District, "There appears to be no increase over last year." He said, though there is an increase in actual money because this year the district is receiving $28.4 million and last year they received $27.3 million, most of that increase is reimbursements from capital expenditures that the district did last year. He said that money is not available for them to spend because they had already spent it buying buses and making capital improvements and the state was just reimbursing them for those expenditures. Sirois stated that the main factor for the district right now is that they have to absorb the cost of living increase, which was approximately 2 percent this past year. He stated, "Without a cost of living increase, it really is a decrease of whatever the cost of living would have been that year."

Island Trees not only did not receive a cost of living increase, in the proposal they are actually receiving over $215,000 less than they did for the 1998-99 school year. For this school year the district received $8,991,843 and in the governor's proposed budget for the 1999-2000 school year they would receive $8,776,788. This is a significant decrease to Island Trees because they just passed a resolution to have a nine-period day for the coming school year. They made this decision to increase instructional time to better prepare the students for the new state mandates. This change from an eight to nine period day will cost the district additional money because it means more staff and supplies.

According to Assemblyman Marc Herbst, who represents both Island Trees and part of Levittown, the decrease that Island Trees saw in their aid was due to the fact that last year they received reimbursements for capital improvements that they had made the previous year and they did have the same capital expenditures for this school year.

The new state mandates, which have been unfunded, have cost both districts a great deal of money in the past year. Some of the costs that they have had to absorb have included additional materials and substitute teachers for the days that the state has mandated them to send teachers for training in the new tests and to grade the new fourth grade tests.

The governor's proposal is not the final word on the state aid that school districts will receive and both Levittown and Island Trees have high hopes that the money brought into their districts will increase in the budget process. The Assembly people in both districts have worked hard in the past to increase the amount of aid for education and plan to fight this year for more increases.

Herbst stated, "This is the opening of the deliberative process." He added, "I think there is plenty of room for improvement there and I'd like to see an increase in some of the aids, the categorical aids...at first glance there are reductions and I don't want to see that happening." Herbst explained that the budget process begins with the governor's proposal and then the Legislature holds public hearings and goes through a deliberative process for a couple of months. He said that with the public hearings they reach out to groups such as school boards and PTAs and get feedback from the groups that they represent. With that information the Legislature goes back and makes amendments to the budget.

Assemblywoman Kathleen Murray, who represents part of Levittown said, "I think what he proposed, his overall increase for education, was modest, and certainly, coming off our historically high increase last year, anything, in a sense, will look like a disappointment." She added, "What's important to remember about the governor's budget, with regard to education, and many other areas, is that this is an opening salvo." Murray stated that she would not be surprised, after the Senate and Assembly hold their fact finding hearings, if there were an increase in aid. She lauded the governor on his attempt to reduce the debt but said that she was still planning to fight for more aid for education.

Herbst, too, plans to fight to increase educational aid. He stated, "School aid increases will be my number one priority in the budget deliberations, my personal priority." Both he and Murray expressed the belief that all the legislators from Long Island would be fighting for increased aid because of the higher cost of living. Murray stated, "I think there should be a regional increase because Long Island is such an expensive place to live compared to other parts of the state...I feel, in a sense that we always get shortchanged on the state aid formulas."

The superintendents of both Levittown and Island Trees believe that taxpayers will see an increase because of the lack of a significant increase in state aid. Segerdahl said he always uses the governor's proposed figure when putting together his district's budget so anything extra they get will decrease the tax rate from the budget that the residents voted on. He said that Island Trees would most likely see a tax increase this year stating, "I know of no district that has come in with a nine period day, which we are trying to offer to provide all of our children more education, which means more staff, without having to raise their taxes." Sirois said Levittown taxes would go up under the proposed budget because, "In addition to whatever other expenditures have to be made, taxpayers have to pick up the cost of living, which would be that 2 percent." He said between that and the unfunded state mandates taxpayers would most likely see an increase.

The district's plan to do everything they can to increase the money allotted to them by the state and plan to join with the other districts in Nassau County for a county-wide lobbying effort on March 19, in which they bring their concerns to their local Assemblymembers' attention.