Herricks Superintendent Tony Sinanis has thanked everyone in the district, including staff and administrators, for their support over the summer as his first year in charge quickly approaches. 

“Thank you to the board for your time, insight and collective support over the past few weeks,” Sinanis said at the Thursday night Board of Education meeting. “It’s great to be in a position where you wake up in the morning and look forward to coming to work because you work with the people here.”

Thursday night was Sinanis’ first in-person meeting. He was sworn in earlier this summer on July 1 but was unable to attend due to quarantining from COVID-19. 

Sinanis said many summer programs are wrapping up or have already concluded, including the summer enrichment program and YMCA summer recreation program, among others. 

In unrelated district news, the Board of Education established a tax levy of $102,879,658 for the 2022-2023 school year. 

The current school budget, passed in May, is $125.3 million and represents a 1.99% increase from the previous year. The budget also calls for a tax increase of 0.5%, which fell below the cap guideline of 1.61% 

Over the last seven years, the district’s average tax levy increase has been 1.54%.

Some 76% of the budget is devoted to programs and 13% goes to capital improvements, according to district officials.  The district anticipates state aid of $16.6 million, an increase of $2.2 million from the current year.

Some highlights include funding for social-emotional learning programs, instructional technology improvement and updated facilities.

Before adjourning, BOE President Jim Gounaris noted that future meetings will be expected to begin at 7:30 p.m. but may be pushed back to 8 p.m. depending on any previous work a member of the board has. 

“There may be instances in the future where we may move the meeting to 8 p.m. depending on what we have going on prior to that,” Gounaris said.

The district’s annual building tour will be held on Aug. 23. For the Board of Education, its next meetings will be held on Aug. 25, Sept. 8 and Sept. 22.