The New York State Legislature has voted to override Governor George Pataki's vetoes of the legislature's proposed budget. As a result of the state legislature passing their own budget, schools across Long Island, including Mineola, will be receiving more money in state aid.

On Tuesday, June 3, residents of the Mineola School District will be voting on a $62,376,459 budget, which represents a 5.41 percent increase over last year's $59,177,490 spending plan.

According to the governor's budget proposal, the district would have received approximately $400,000 less than the district received in state aid for the 2002-2003 school budget.

However, because the state legislature voted against the governor's budget plan, the district will now receive an additional $476,000 in state aid. The additional money will now go toward reducing the tax levy, according to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Lorenzo Licopoli. The tax levy is the amount of money raised by taxpayers of the district to fund the budget,

With the governor's proposal, residents of the Mineola School District would have had to raise $57,526,459 in tax dollars if the school budget were to pass on June 3. Now, with the state legislature's budget, taxpayers will have to raise $57,050,091 if the budget were to pass on June 3, meaning less money will have to be raised by taxpayers in order to support the school budget's expenditures.

Although the budget represented an increase of 5.41 percent in expenditures, residents would have been facing a 9.03 percent increase in the tax levy under the governor's budget proposal. However, now, the additional $476,000 in state aid reduced the tax levy to under 8 percent.

The annual budget hearing will be held on Tuesday, May 27 at 7 p.m. at Mineola Middle School.

It was reported in the May 7 issue of the Mineola American that in addition to voting on the budget on June 3, residents of the Mineola School District will also be voting on Proposition #2 to change the requirement for bus transportation from one mile around each of the elementary schools to a half mile for students in grades three to five, thereby providing transportation to more students. It was reported that the proposal would cost $120,000. That is no longer the case. The proposal comes at no additional cost to the taxpayer, but still must be voted on.

Dr. Licopoli reported that the district will provide transportation to and from the Willis Avenue School, which will house the district's pre-kindergarten and full-day kindergarten programs, for all students living more than a half mile from the school.

In order to free up buses and make transportation possible for the Willis Avenue School without hiring any new bus drivers and without disrupting the start and dismissal times for the other schools in the district, the district has determined that the start time for the Willis Avenue School will be 9:18 a.m. with a dismissal time of 3:48 p.m.

District resident George Harte of Albertson questioned whether the dismissal time is too late for young children attending school for the first time.

In order to provide transportation for the Willis School, the district will be leasing four buses, which were budgeted for, in addition to using some of the buses that service other schools.

The committee formed to study what type of pre-kindergarten program will be implemented in the future will meet on Wednesday, May 21 at 7 p.m. in the Mineola High School cafeteria.