The Mineola School District Board of Education and administration are in the process of putting together a 2005-2006 budget, which will be put in front of the public in May for a vote, that they believe will be fiscally responsible. But before a plan can be put in front of the public that they believe will be palpable, the board is expected to make between $2.5 and $3.5 million in expense side reductions.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Lorenzo Licopoli said that the goal will be to put a fiscally responsible budget before the public while preserving the core program of the district.

While the board of education and administration will have to deal with pressures on the budget such as contractual increases, full accrual of the teachers' and employees' retirement systems, increases in health insurance and an expected shortfall in state aid, the board will attempt to cut $2.5 million to $3.5 million in expenses that were not in the 2004-2005 budget. Every $600,000 is equivalent to one percent of the budget.

Dr. Licopoli said that one of the things that will be presented to the board and the public at the March 17 meeting is the definition of what the district's core program, co-curricular program, extra-curricular program and non-mandated program are. "Once we put the price tags to each of those, you make your reductions from the things that are furthest from the core," Dr. Licopoli said. "If you believe the core is most important and then the things closest to the core are essential to advancing the mission of the school district; if you have to take out the outer ring, you take out the entire outer ring."

The outer ring the superintendent is referring to includes non-mandated clerical support, all of the equipment, adult education, all of the summer school programs, and, to some extent, possibly pre-kindergarten. But, Dr. Licopoli said, in the case of pre-kindergarten, "The board has to define that. There are provisions within the education law that allows them to put a value to pre-kindergarten."

In the quest to put a budget that is fiscally responsible and conservative so that the public will support it, the board must make decisions on what it believes the district can live without. However, the superintendent and the board seem committed to keeping the district's educational program intact.

Although Mineola has an excellent student-to-teacher ration eliminating teaching positions doesn't appear to be an option. That's because the way the contract with the teacher's association is written, the board is prohibited from reducing staff in a manner that is typically available to a board of education in other school districts. "It reduces your flexibility but we're hoping to preserve as much as we can. We have some people who are retiring. We're looking at ways we can organize our schedules in terms of preserving those positions without filling them," Dr. Licopoli said.

The district can reduce its staff by attrition; meaning, if members of the staff were to retire, positions wouldn't have to necessarily be filled. The district can also opt to cut some of its support staff.

At the March 17 meeting, the public portion of which will begin at 8 p.m. in the cafeteria of the Willis Avenue School, the board is expected to discuss where the $2.5 to $3.5 million will come from in a similar form at the March 3 meeting.

The last meeting of the board of education on March 3 was a meeting featuring open dialogue between board members in front of the public. "The public really had an opportunity to see the board grapple with very real issues in a very genuine way," Dr. Licopoli said.