Rockville Centre School District Moves Ahead With $141.3M Budget Proposal

ROCKVILLE CENTRE, NY — The Rockville Centre Board of Education adopted a budget proposal Thursday night, setting the budget that will go before voters next month after a months-long process that revealed a multimillion-dollar budget deficit that would require the elimination of some staff positions.

In a presentation before the board Thursday night, Superintendent Matthew Gaven and Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations Jacqueline Rehak outlined a $141,323,369 budget, which amounts to a 1.03 percent increase from the previous year's budget. Of that $141.3 million, 78.35 percent will be allocated to programs, 12.93 percent will be in the capital budget and 8.72 percent will go toward administration. The budget will come with a 2.06 percent tax increase, which district officials said falls within the calculated tax cap.

The budget still includes staff reductions, which are outlined below. Gaven said the reductions had changed from the board’s last budget proposal, a change that came after conversations with teachers and administrators’ unions as well as public comment at board meetings.

“We have met with the teachers’ association, the administrators’ association, as well as digesting public comment, and we’re proposing restoring some of the facilitator positions that were slated for reduction,” Gaven said.

Among the 13 positions restored in the latest proposal are a facilitator role at Wilson and one at Hewitt, as well as ELA, math, science and social studies positions at the high school and middle school. There would also be a special education facilitator at both the high school and middle school to provide special education programs and a greenhouse facilitator. The proposed change, Gaven said, would be financed by reallocating $120,000 from the district’s salary budget.

Gaven noted that more teaching assistant positions could be restored in the event that state foundation aid comes in higher than expected. Previous proposals from Gov. Kathy Hochul accounted for 1 percent increase in foundation aid, but legislative proposals currently project a two percent increase, a difference of about $125,000.

The 2.06 percent tax levy increase, Rehak said, is currently projected to work out to a little over $300 for a household with the district’s average assessed home value.

While the budget passed the board, it wasn’t unanimously popular with public commenters Thursday. Nine-year-old Michael Lutz, whose birthday was just a day before the meeting, asked the board why

“Why are you firing teachers because, somehow, the money is messed up? Why should they lose their jobs? They didn’t make a mistake,” Lutz said. “There’s a great teacher in my classroom named Ms. King, she’s really, really kind, and she’s there to help one of us specifically, but she helps any kids who need it. If you could spare her, and other teachers like her, my school will be able to sustain the ability to help more students…Don’t fire teachers that help kids.”

In her public comment, Rockville Centre Teachers’ Association President Lesli Deninno thanked the board and the administration for their collaboration with the teachers’ association during the budget process. Despite the fact that staff positions would be eliminated under this budget, Deninno called it “Critically important” that the budget pass.

“The reality is, the impacts we’re already seeing are significant. If this budget does not pass, the programmatic cuts will be far worse,” Deninno said. “Those cuts will impact students in ways that cannot be easily undone.”

Deninno said the teachers’ association still had outstanding questions on multiple topics, including special education costs, staff reductions and process. Statements made by the board on special education costs and staff reductions, Deninno said, did not match some of the information displayed during Gaven and Rehak’s presentation, a matter that Deninno said highlighted the need for transparency from the board.

“We understand the reality of what happens if the budget fails. We understand that additional programmatic cuts will follow, and those cuts will go deeper, into classrooms, into services and into opportunities for students. This moment matters. Passing the budget is not about accepting everything about the question, it is about preventing even greater harm to students while continuing to demand transparency, accountability and better planning moving forward.”

At the end of the budget discussion, Board of Education President Kelly Barry, Vice President Donna Downing, Secretary Janet Gruner and Trustee Tara Hackett all voted in favor of the budget, while Trustee Erica Messier voted against it.

"What's most concerning in this budget is that many of the cuts...are not unavoidable tradeoffs, they are choices, and they reflect a pattern of choosing what is easier to implement over what we know is educationally sound. We are not strengthening systems, we are hollowing them out," Messier said. "We are not aligning resources, we are stretching them beyond the point of effectiveness, and we are not being fully transparent about the impact of these decisions. It would be a lot easier to accept this budget than to confront the harder questions it raises about alignment, priorities and design. But my responsibility is not to do what is easy, it is to do what's sound; and, in its current form, the proposed budget is not."