East Meadow Board of Ed Discuss 2011-12 Budget Figures and Concerns

Members of the East Meadow Board of Education assembled in the on Feb. 3 to discuss a variety of school issues including the 2011-12 school budget.

The budget discussions commenced with a conversation on technology and the Board unanimously voted to upgrade , , and to a fiber optic system. The four elementary schools are the only schools in the East Meadow School District that are currently on a wireless system and each school maintains their own servers with this system.

The district's technology staff pointed out that by switching to a fiber optic network, the district will maintain a consistent network throughout all of the buildings, increased network capacity, reliability and stability, and a cost reduction. In addition, since the federal government provides e-rates or federal reimbursements to assist schools in receiving the latest in technology, East Meadow School District will benefit by upgrading their systems and the project is set to start before the end of March.

After discussing the fiber optic enhancements, the board started to discuss the proposed budget set to be adopted on April 7 and the district vote will occur on May 17.

“We made a commitment to contain the budget to the biggest degree that we can,” said Louis R. DeAngelo, superintendent of East Meadow Schools, as he talked about this year’s projection. He went on to explain how last year’s budget was $1.71 percent and the anticipated tax levy increase was $1.36 percent meaning East Meadow asked for $1.36 more from taxpayers than they did the year before.

“All we have control over is what amount of money we are asking for in the county to operate the schools on a tax basis,” added DeAngelo when stating East Meadow has no control over the county’s situation. Fortunately, the current estimated budget for East Meadow is steady with no staff cuts or increased class sizes and the continuation of fulfilling initiatives, such as the Science Research Program and Smart Board initiation in classrooms.

DeAngelo also discussed the various state and federal threats to education as a whole and how it has affected East Meadow in the past and how it can in the future. When the state projected a loss of $4.5 million in state aid for school districts two years ago, East Meadow was able to supplement the cuts with funds from Obama’s stimulus packages in 2009 and 2010. But, East Meadow is not counting on these funds this year and has new concerns with Governor Cuomo’s bill to impose a property tax cap on schools and government.

Following conferring about Governor Cuomo’s bill, the Board reviewed the 2011-12 academic school calendar and highlighted East Meadow’s green cleaning program recently featured in American School & University magazine. The district also received an Honorable Mention from the magazine’s 2009 Green Cleaning Award Program.

The next meeting scheduled is a communications meeting on Feb. 17 in the Leon J. Campo Salisbury Center at 8 p.m.