With a contingency budget looming and the summer recreation program in jeopardy, the East Williston School Board sought the assistance of other people/organizations to run the summer program. These efforts, unfortunately, were not successful and the superintendent and board then turned to the Town of North Hempstead. The town acceded to the board's request, resulting in the town assuming all responsibility for running the summer recreation program. The board subsequently passed a resolution agreeing to enter into a contract to allow the town to use its facilities to run this program. This meant the town would now be involved in a matter that is really the responsibility of the school district and assumed a roll that it has never before taken.

This raises serious questions that the residents of the school district, as well as all other taxpayers in North Hempstead are entitled to receive answers to.

* How well did the town research the summer program's financial situation and assess that situation before determining if it could run the program without costing town taxpayers any money? Is there any guarantee that this program is completely self-sustaining? For example, the exorbitant air-conditioning expense, which was picked up by the taxpayers last year, will not be fully realized until camp is over. And by the way, our neighborhood day camps who charge upwards of $4,000 per child, do not provide air conditioning for the campers. Further, if some families quickly made other arrangements for their children due to the uncertainty of the program in June, there will be less incoming revenue.

* Since the personnel in the summer recreation program will be treated as town employees rather than that of the school district, who will set that pay scale? What will the specific salaries be?

* If the town is taking money out of the town budget for this commitment, then in essence, all of the taxpayers of other school districts in the Town of North Hempstead will in reality be subsidizing a program in a school district other than their own.

* Although it would appear to be in the best interests of the children for the town to take on this program, should this be a responsibility of a town government?

* If the town is approached by other districts for financial assistance, is it prepared to do the same for other districts?

I have attempted to obtain the answers to these questions by requesting a copy of the agreement/contract from the East Williston School District. Although the town has advised me that the agreement/contract has been finalized, I have been unable to obtain this from the school district.

It should be pointed out that by removing this item from the budget, the board was able to reduce the required budgetary cuts by approximately $300,000. However, in so doing, it also had to remove from the revenue side the $300,000 in income that was generated by the program. This decrease in revenue will have to be made up by the taxpayer and is estimated that it will cost a homeowner on average an additional $91 per year. To summarize, instead of cutting spending, they removed a revenue- producing program thus placing an additional tax burden on the East Williston school district residents.

I would like it understood that I am in complete support of the summer program. I strongly disapprove of the tactics employed by the town and the board to accomplish the school board's objective of lowering the budget appropriations to meet the mandated contingency budget cap.

Julius Cohen