Residents of the Mineola School District will go to the polls on Tuesday, May 15 from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. to vote on the proposed 2007-2008 school budget for the Mineola School District. The budget represents a 5.46 percent spending increase and a 4.7 percent increase in the tax levy, which is the amount of the budget to be raised by taxes.

The plan calls for $75,664,471 in spending. Out of that amount, $68,315,407 is expected to come from taxes. The district estimates that, according to the current Nassau County household school tax for Mineola, the average assessed home in the district would see a tax increase of $236 if the budget was to pass.

If the budget were to fail, the board would have the option of putting another budget before the public for another vote or adopting a contingency budget. If the board were to adopt a contingency budget, the board would have to reduce the budget by $330,340. The cuts would come from operational equipment ($212,573) and capital upgrade equipment ($125,000).

The budget will allow the district to maintain a $1.4 million undesignated fund balance, a $200,000 GASB45 reserve and provides what the district calls an equitable settlement with all four bargaining units that the board is currently negotiating with, including the Mineola Teacher's Association. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Larry Licopoli said there have been regular meetings with the teachers' union but a settlement isn't expected to be reached during the current school year.

While the budget has been supported by the Mineola PTA organizations, there are some who will not be supporting the school budget. Mineola Civic Association President Bill Urianek appeared at Thursday's budget hearing to say that senior citizens can't afford any further tax increases.

Urianek alluded to the increasing cost per pupil that the Mineola School District has. For the 2007-2008 school year, the district estimates that its cost per pupil will be $28,000, which is among the highest in Nassau County.

A district financial planning committee, made up of district residents and district staff, stated in its Feb. 2006 report to the board of education that the cost per pupil for the 2005-2006 budget was $25,160. The committee concluded that the salaries and benefits accounted for $21,105 per student for that year, meaning that most of the costs the school district incurs go towards salaries and benefits. For the proposed 2007-2008 budget, the district estimates that 78.7 percent of the budget will toward salaries and benefits, down from 81.5 percent in 2006-2007.

While some residents of the district may be frustrated with the increasing taxes, the salaries and benefits, the main factor that is driving Mineola's cost per student, are mandated by the contracts the district has with its employee unions. Even if the budget were to fail, those salaries and benefits would have to be paid.

Another taxpayer who is critical of the budget is the district's own co-chairman of its finance committee, Bruce Burmester, who took exception to the budget newsletter sent out to residents because he felt the newsletter insinuated the finance committee endorsed the budget.

The newsletter stated, "members of the district financial planning advisory committee continued to scrutinize the budget allocations and its organization until the final proposed budget was completed. This effort is not shown specifically in the figures but is embedded in our overall goal to control costs."

Burmester said the financial planning committee did not endorse the budget. Burmester, who believes the budget can be reduced by a million dollars, questioned the role of the committee in the budget process, saying the committee was reduced to just asking questions and didn't have any input into the budget. "Basically, our job was to ask questions - that's it this year," he said.

Dr. Licopoli said the committee reviewed virtually every detail in the budget and asked very hard questions. The superintendent said some members of the committee who spoke favorably about how the budget was organized and how it was put together.

Another member of the financial planning committee said the committee was not asked to vote on whether to endorse the budget. The member also felt the committee was not given enough latitude in the budget process.

Another member of the committee, Chris Carpenito, a certified public accountant, said he would like to see the scope of the committee be better defined as there is some confusion with the authority and role of the finance committee.

However, Carpenito believes the school district leadership did a good job of controlling costs and does support the proposed budget. However, he also believes the board of education has some work to do to reduce its cost per student.

"I thought that's about as good as you're going to get," he said of the 4.7 percent tax levy increase. "I know not everybody is happy about that. They still feel the cost per student is going up and I agree. In the long term, the only way to get that number [cost per student] down is going to be stronger negotiations, particularly with the teacher's union, and reducing physically the number of schools we have. If we do that, we can actually drive this number down over time but I think 4.7 percent in the current environment we have is as good as you can possibly get."