The Massapequa Board of Education held the first of four workshops designed to inform the community about the budget development process for the 2004-05 school district budget Feb. 12.

Assistant Superintendent for Business Alan Adcock led the workshop by discussing factors that will have a major impact next year, such as enrollment growth, and increases in health insurance costs and retirement system rates. Budget recommendations in the areas of general support, transportation, community services, employee benefits and debt service followed.

Adcock illustrated that the district has held the line in expenditures under its control by keeping increases in general support, transportation, community services and debt services to under 3 percent.

"Retirement system rates, medical insurance rates, and Social Security contributions have risen sharply again this year," said Adcock. "These issues are the major drivers for the 2004-05 budget year, yet completely out of the school district's control."

The next budget workshop will focus on the instructional portion of the budget, and is scheduled for March 4 at 8 p.m. in the Board Room, Administration Wing of Massapequa High School. District residents are encouraged to attend.

In other Board of Education news, the 2004-05 school calendar was approved at a regularly scheduled meeting Feb. 5. The calendar provides for 181 days of instruction, one teacher orientation day in September, one teacher conference day in November, and one emergency make-up day at the end of March Recess.

According to Deputy Superintendent Charles Sulc, "The 2004-05 calendar was one of the most challenging calendars I have ever been involved in developing. It is always our goal to assemble a calendar that is both educationally sound and manageable while taking into account guidelines provided by BOCES and the State Education Department, Regents test dates, contractual obligations, and traditional holiday periods. These factors and others contributed to the complexity of creating this year's calendar."

The calendar is available on district's website at www.msd.k12.ny.us and at each school building. Residents are encouraged to print a copy and, of course, make those vacation plans early.

Finally, the Board of Education Special Meeting scheduled for March 25 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. was recently changed. The new date is March 13, from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.. The meeting will be called to order at which time the Board will move directly into Executive Session for the purpose of discussing negotiations and specific personnel.