Seaford School Administrators Sacrifice Pay Increase for Next Year

With a challenging budget process ahead of them that will need to include cuts, Seaford’s administrative team has volunteered to forgo their annual increases for next school year.

Seaford’s administrative team who offered to go without an increase for next year includes Superintendent Brian L. Conboy, John A. Striffolino, assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and personnel, and Ken W. Aldrich, assistant superintendent for business. The administrative team’s decision to sacrifice an increase for the next budget year was announced at the March 3 Board of Education meeting, drawing a large applause from the crowd in the All Purpose Room.

“I would like to thank them for doing that,” said Seaford Board of Education president Brian Fagan. “I think that is a very positive step for us and we appreciate that.”

The current salaries for Seaford’s lead administrators are $200,000 for Conboy, $166,345 for Aldrich and $160,000 for Striffolino, according to the New York State Department of Education.

Seaford is in the midst of producing a budget to put before the voters on May 17 that will need to include some cuts in order to assure passage by the voters. Seaford, which is facing a $1.6 million cut in aid from Albany in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s latest fiscal proposal, would need to increase its budget 7 percent in order to maintain all current programs and staff. At the last Board of Education work session on Feb. 17 a draft budget of $55.9 million, a 4.4 percent increase, was discussed and smaller spending proposals are going to be debated at upcoming meetings.

A major obstacle facing Seaford in adopting its budget plan is only having $608,000 in unrestricted reserves. In attempt to make the budget process more manageable and avoid major staff cuts the school board approached the United Teachers of Seaford to see if it would be willing to re-negotiate its current contract approved last June, but was unsuccessful.

The next Seaford Board of Education work session is scheduled for this Thursday at starting at 7:30 p.m.