An open letter to the community from the Manhasset Board of Education dated Tuesday, June 10, 2003:

"One of the biggest surprises [on this year's school budget votes] was the defeat of the Manhasset budget, shortly after Manhasset High School was ranked by Newsweek as No. 11 among the nation's top 100 public high schools," as reported in The New York Times, June 8, 2003.

Since the budget was defeated last week by 86 votes, we have been working to formulate a revised 2003-2004 school budget to be put to a vote by the Manhasset community on June 25.

Our objective in this process is straight-forward: to be responsive to the fiscal concerns of our constituents while giving the community an opportunity to pass a new budget and thereby avoid the cuts that will otherwise be mandated by an austerity budget.

In developing this revised budget, we were guided by a strong concern to avoid cuts that would adversely impact programs for our students.

The defeated budget was driven by two key factors: i) cost increases that were [MSOffice1]outside the control of the district and ii) continuing enrollment growth, which for next year is projected to be 3.4 percent.

Specifically, just the following five budget line items outside our control increased the budget by $2,162,702 accounting for almost half of the 8.97 percent increase:

Teacher Retirement System Contribution Costs (pursuant to a N.Y. State mandated defined benefits plan)

Employees Retirement System Contribution Costs (also pursuant to a N.Y. State mandated defined benefits plan)

Health Insurance Costs

Workers Compensation

Payments for BOCES services

The revised budget, which was approved tonight, will be put before the voters on June 25. This new budget will be $62,749,319, a reduction of $ 466,000 from the defeated budget, and represents an 8.17 percent budget-to-budget increase from the previous year, as compared with an 8.97 percent increase in the defeated budget. The $466,000 in reductions were made after careful review of the line-by-line budget.

While every effort was made to avoid detrimental effects in the classroom, the revised budget will entail non-teaching staff reductions, defer purchase of equipment, impair administrative areas and curtail professional and curriculum development. These cuts will affect all levels in the District, from the administrative level to all four of our elementary and secondary schools.

If the revised budget is rejected by the voters on June 25, State law mandates that we adopt an austerity budget for the 2003-2004 school year.

The revised budget we are presenting for vote by the community on June 25 calls for $466,000 in reductions from the defeated budget.

In contrast, an austerity budget will require very deep cuts as compared with the defeated budget or the revised budget - that is, additional cuts on the order of $3.0 to $4.0 million. An austerity budget cap could require the following reductions:

* 10 teaching positions across our four schools

* 50 percent or more of all extra-curricular and interscholastic sports programs

* Supplemental busing services

* All audiovisual and computer hardware

* Community use of District fields and facilities, except where there is no cost to the District

* Summer Center

* Continuing Education

* Summer School

* Manhasset/Great Neck Pre-Kindergarten Program

It is important to note that, in an austerity budget, all collective bargaining and contractual agreements, as well as all State-mandated employee benefit plan obligations, must be met.

In this challenging year, we have struggled to present to you a budget increase that is as low as possible without adversely affecting the quality of education Manhasset provides to its children. We recognize that Manhasset has a history of strong support for its schools. We pledge to continue to foster this strong support by appropriately balancing the outstanding programs for students of all needs with our fiscal responsibility to you. To that end, we are developing long-term plans which allow us to both continue to improve upon the high caliber of our schools and present fiscally responsible budgets.

Barbara Donno, President

Tom Killeen, Vice President

Reuben Cohen

Debbie Klein

Tom Maimone

Manhasset Board of Education

The Board of Education and the Administration hope that the community will note the following important events:

The Public Hearing on the revised budget will be held on June 17 at 8 p.m.

Voter Registration will be June 19 from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Individuals interested in registering may call 627-4400, ext. 3040.

The budget vote will be on June 25, from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., in the Manhasset High School gym.