A computer problem caused the Town of North Hempstead to deliver a portion of tax revenue to the Mineola School District four business days late. In order to meet expenses, the school district had to take out a tax anticipation note, which proved to be an additional cost to the district.

In these days when the Mineola School District is under a contingency budget, every dollar counts. That's why a late payment of tax revenue due the district from the Town of North Hempstead is giving Mineola Superintendent of Schools Dr. Lorenzo Licopoli cause for frustration.

The Town of North Hempstead collects taxes from taxpayers and then distributes the appropriate revenue to school districts. School districts need the revenue by June 30 in order to meet expenses.

Dr. Licopoli said a call was placed to the town inquiring about receiving the tax revenue. "They weren't sure they would be ready to distribute our share of the revenue prior to June 30. We asked what the problem was. We were told there was a possibility of a glitch in the computer. At that moment, they weren't sure whether or not we were going to see these funds on the date we were expecting them," Dr. Licopoli said.

A town spokesperson acknowledged that the final payment of $1.5 million due the town was delayed four business days due to a computer problem.

In the case of the Mineola School District, this created a problem. The district had to take out a tax anticipation note. "I had to borrow money to close out all my expenses at the end of the [school] year," said Dr. Licopoli.

According to the superintendent, that note including interest and fees cost the district $11,600. Because the district paid the money back shortly after, it ended up costing between $5,200 and $5,600, the superintendent said.

Dr. Licopoli said the town ultimately did deliver the final tax revenue payment. "But the fact is I still had to borrow the money," he said. "Our issue is that it just didn't seem right. This happened two years in a row. To me, it seemed that they should have anticipated that there was a computer glitch and prevented that from happening. At the end of the day, that $5,600 had to come out of some place. We didn't budget that expense."

According to Dr. Licopoli, last year when the payment was late, the district dipped into its fund balance to cover expenses. But this year, that was not the case. "This year, we're late on our audit. We have a new external auditor and generally they are the ones who can figure what your fund balance is. Because we got started late, I don't have exact numbers so we weren't in a position where we could project exactly what our balances were. Given, how this budget was structured, we used in the 2004-2005 school year a good portion of our fund balance to offset taxes so our budget became very lean. I didn't have that kind of money at the end of June to take care of actually what would be our end of the year payroll," he said.

With the Mineola school budget being over $60 million, $5,600 may not seem like a lot of money. However, consider that the Mineola Thespian Troupe is trying to raise money to put on its fall play at the high school, which was cut as part of the contingency budget. The anticipated savings to the budget by taking the fall play out is $5,532.

In response, a spokesperson for the Town of North Hempstead issued this response. "The Receiver of Taxes office has delivered over $47 million to the Mineola School District in an advanced manner this year due to our new lock box system. In fact, in excess of $26 million was dispersed during the first 60 days of collection to the school district. The final payment of approximately $1.5 million was delayed four business days due to a computer problem that the town is in the process of correcting."

(Editors Note: Although the Village of Mineola is within the Town of North Hempstead. This does not involve the Village of Mineola government.)

As part of the budget cuts made to adopt a contingency budget, the board of education voted to eliminate pre-Kindergarten mid-day bus runs to and from the Willis Avenue School and late buses.

As part of the budget cuts, the board chose four full-time equivalent 12-month bus drivers to be 10-month, eight-hour drivers. It was learned that these drivers can be further reduced from eight-hour drivers to five-hour drivers at a savings of approximately $72,000.

The transportation department has come up with a plan to restore some of the busing that was lost due to the budget cuts. The plan, although not formally introduced and recommended to the board of education, would include mid-day bus runs for pre-Kindergarten. The plan would require children to be dropped off at their home schools (either Meadow, Jackson, Cross or Hampton). The buses would then pickup and drop-off the children at their home schools. The money would also be spent to restore some of the late buses. It is estimated that 85 public and 45 private students use late buses daily.

However, there was some disagreement about restoring the buses among some district residents who attended last Thursday's board of education meeting who felt that if there was money found, it should spread around to some of other areas that received cuts such as athletics and fine arts.

It was announced that beginning Sept. 8, board of education meetings would begin at 7:30 p.m. as opposed to 8 p.m. Also, public comment period would take place prior to any presentations for an hour. Then, public comments would cease until after presentations. With the Mineola School District opting to outsource technology, the district entered into contract with the firm Open System Technology (OST) to provide technology support.

The district passed a resolution that "hereby approves the preferral of disciplinary charges pursuant to Section 75 of the Civil Service Law, against an employee and hereby appoints Arthur Riegel, Esq., to serve as hearing officer in respect to said disciplinary charges."

When a resident questioned the resolution, the board said it was confidential and could not discuss it. Jack Feldman, attorney for the board of education, said that if there is a finding of guilt, it would be available to the public. He said it should be resolved in 90 days or less.