Schools

$1.7M in Cuts Made to 2011-12 Budget; Tax Levy Projected at 5.4 Percent

Preliminary numbers show an increase of 4.8 percent in the average RVC homeowners school taxes.

More than $1.7 million in cuts were made to the district's 2011-12 budget, chopping the increase over this year's budget from 4.26 percent to 2.41 percent, school officials said. Preliminary tax numbers were released at Tuesday night's Board of Education meeting, and officials say that the tax levy — in a worst case scenario — would be 5.4 percent, thus raising the average Rockville Centre homeowner's school taxes by 4.8 percent.

As of now, the overall budget for 2011-12 is $95,666,708. Revenues are down about $2 million, including a $1.2 million cut in state aid to the district.

In a list of equipment upgrades, renovation requests and cuts, Assistant Superintendent of Business Robert Bartells detailed which items were a high priority and those that needed to be eliminated. The biggest cuts were in the district's contribution to the teachers and employees retirement systems. The district will not fully fund the TRS, contributing $900,000 of a potential $1.4 million, and use $400,000 from its ERS reserve fund to offset state mandated increases.

Find out what's happening in Rockville Centrewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"We'll have to increase the following year's budget (2012-13) by $500,000 to make up for it," Bartells said. "The liability is incurred in 2011-12, but not paid until the 2012-13 school year. It pushes the expense off for one more year."

Other items cut were requests made by school and department heads for renovation or upgrades, like new carpeting in certain rooms and the installation of electronic clocks at a few elementary schools.

Find out what's happening in Rockville Centrewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

If you missed some of the board's budget sessions, you can watch them here


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