BY JOHN NUGENT
The Herricks Board of Education voted to adopt a $125.3 million budget proposal for the 2022-23 school year.
Lisa Rutkoske, the district’s assistant superintendent for business, presented details of the new budget at the board meeting last Thursday. The proposal represents a spending increase of 1.99 percent from the current year and calls for a tax increase of 0.5 percent, she said.
School Superintendent Fino Celano said the main budget priority is “to maintain the long-term financial well-being” of the district. He emphasized that with very few commercial properties in the district, the tax burden falls almost entirely on the homeowners. Therefore, meeting the needs of the students without overburdening the taxpayers continues to be a primary focus in devising the budget, Celano said.
He added that the Herricks district has 361 Advanced Placement scholars and a 99 percent graduation rate. Also, nine students qualified as finalists for National Merit Scholarships.
Breaking down the budget, 76 percent of it is devoted to programs and 13 percent goes to capital improvements, said Rutkoske, stressing the importance of maintaining a safe environment throughout all district facilities. She said she anticipates state aid of $16.6 million, an increase of $2.2 million from the current year.
A final budget review will be held on May 5. The public vote is May 17.
Before the budget presentation, Patrick Luongo, a member relations manager for the New York State School Boards Association, presented a Champions of Change banner to the Herricks school district for instituting a Spanish language immersion program.
The goal of the program, which was started 12 years ago, is to make students totally fluent in another language by the time they graduate from high school, said Luongo. He praised the Herricks district for “sticking with the program” in order to prepare the students to be “global citizens.”
Herricks is the only district in New York state that offers a language immersion program, said Celano.