Residents across Long Island will be going to the polls on Tuesday, May 17 to vote on proposed school budgets for the 2005-2006 school year. In districts across Long Island, board of education members and administrators have had to put together budget plans that include mandated and contractual spending increases while attempting to elicit a positive response from the community. Last year, many Long Island districts such as the West Hempstead School District and the Sewanhaka Central High School District saw their budgets fail on the first try only to have them pass when the budgets were reduced and put out for votes again. FULL STORY

At a public hearing May 3, Sewanhaka Central High School District officials presented the proposed 2005-06 $126,501,634 budget, with a 6.8 percent increase in expenditures and a 6.2 percent tax levy increase. This is the smallest percentage increase in expenditures in the past three years and the smallest tax levy increase in recent budget history. FULL STORY