Seaford District Officials Tackle Challenging Budget Process

The exact numbers for this year’s proposed Seaford School District budget proposal are far from known but one thing that is certain is cuts will have to be made.

Seaford like many districts is facing a challenging budget process this year due to continued murky economic waters combined with facing a $1.6 million cut in state aid, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s latest spending plan. Gov. Cuomo has urged districts to dip into their reserves to help ease the tax burden on residents but Seaford only has $608,000 in unrestricted reserves, making cuts unavoidable.

For Seaford to maintain all current programs and staff there would need to be a 7 percent budget increase, according to Ken Aldrich, Seaford’s assistant superintendent for business.

At a Seaford Board of Education workshop meeting held Thursday night at the trustees and administrative staff discussed what type of budget proposal will be needed to assure passage by voters come May. The district’s draft budget of $55.9 million, a 4.4 percent increase over the current spending plan, would equate to  a tax levy increase of 11 percent. The tax levy is the total amount that a district must raise in property taxes in order to meet expenses.

"Unfortunately we have to get into the engine and take it apart,” said Seaford Board of Education president Brian Fagan during the Feb. 17 meeting of cuts that need to be made to come up with a reasonable budget proposal that will stand a solid chance of being approved by voters.

No matter how small the budget increase is in Seaford, taxes will go up because of a lack of state aid from Albany and because of having not many commercial properties in the district. If Seaford fails to pass a budget and is forced into austerity, where spending is limited to bare essential items, the budget would increase 2.3 percent and the tax levy would rise 8 or 9 percent, according to Aldrich. Even if the budget had no increase at all, the tax levy would increase about 5 percent, said Aldrich.

The Seaford school board members asked administrators to daft budget proposals of 3.5 percent and 2.3 percent increases to see what those spending plans would mean in terms of cuts.  Two possible cuts that were mentioned during Thursday night's meeting were getting rid of 10 department chair positions and the elimination of two sports teams.

Further complicating Seaford's budget process is a proposed 2 percent tax levy cap from Gov. Cuomo that if approved by the state legislature would kick in for next year. Conboy said he is hopeful that if the tax cap goes forward that it will include exemptions for state-mandated expenses in the teacher retirement system and employee retirement system.

Conboy said he along with other Long Island superintendents are exploring ways that districts can save money through possible shared services. Conboy said he spoke with Wantagh Superintendent Dr. Lydia Begley this week to see if there were some ways the two neighboring districts could work together to help save money.

The next Seaford school board meeting is scheduled for March 3 at 7:30 p.m. at .