Bellmore Board of Education Holds Public Budget Meeting

In what was a daunting task in light of recent financial woes suffered by Nassau County school districts in terms of unfunded mandates and new taxes and fees imposed by the county, the Bellmore Board of Education held a budget meeting Tuesday night, where they presented an early draft of their 2011-2012 budget.

Deirdre Gambino, assistant superintendent for business and technology, gave a presentation where she went over both the administrative and capital component summaries of the rough budget.

The administrative budget encompasses various district salaries and services, in addition to broad-reaching insurance fees such as unemployment and disability.

The capital budget, on the other hand, covers things such as operations, maintenance, utilities and employee insurance plans such as health and dental.

Overall, Bellmore is attempting to keep things lean and mean, so to speak; their 2011-2012 Administrative budget is currently projected at $2,992,574, down 0.12 percent (actual dollar amount: $3,719) from the 2010-2011 school year.

Many items on the early draft of the administrative budget have seen only minor increases from the previous year, and multiple categories, such as special education, life insurance, business administrative services, and public information saw either no increase, or were actually budgeted at less than the previous year.

However, the budget for New York State Retirement and New York State Teachers Retirement went up a whopping 30.11 percent and 25.89 percent, respectively.

In comparison, Bellmore's projected 2011-2012 capital budget is currently seeing an increase from the year before, up 2.80 percent (actual dollar amount: $101,577) for a total of $3,728,295.

Heating/plumbing/carpentry/electric allotments currently see no increase over the 2010-2011 budget. The same holds true for grounds maintenance, and unemployment fees are currently down an amazing 76 percent. In contrast, health insurance fees are up 12.91 percent.

"We really went through everything with a fine-tooth comb," Gambino said. "We're very rarely seeing increases in contractual services, materials, supplies, or conference and travel. We are trying to keep the costs down as tightly as we can."

Jay L.T. Breakstone, president of the board, said that the budget draft presented this evening would continue to be optimized until they feel they've effectively gotten the most out of every dime available to the district.

"It's an ongoing process," he said. "It continues to be fine-tuned, and will eventually end up as a budget that we feel the community will support. Until it's a done deal, it's not a done deal."

However, Bellmore's attempts to streamline their operating costs are encountering opposition in the form of state budget cuts levied by governor Andrew Cuomo.

"Unfortunately, we always run a tight ship. It's the guy that owns the ocean that tends to make it a little difficult to get the boat through the water," Breakstone said. "But, we'll continue to run that tight ship."

The Bellmore Board of Education's remaining budget meetings are to be held at Winthrop Avenue School at 7:30 p.m. on March 8 and 15. The budget will be presented in its final form at a public hearing to be held on May 5 at 8 p.m. at the Charles A. Reinhard Early Childhood Center.