Great Neck Schools Superintendant Dr. Teresa Prendergast’s report at the March 30 School Board meeting included a long list of student achievements, including a North High School science research student whose work is being published in a professional journal, students who will be performing at Carnegie Hall, South High’s robotics team qualifying to compete in the world championships, and a very full list of the shows and concerts put on in every building.
Indeed, this year’s USA Today “Best High Schools” edition ranking of nearly 18,000 public high schools had both Great Neck South High (195) and Great Neck North (503) among the 14 Nassau County high schools in the top 1,000 and the district has been ranked No. 1 in the state and No. 3 in the nation.
These things don’t just happen. They happen because of the opportunities that our district affords students, who can discover and nurture their own talents and interests. (See “Statement of Educational Philosophy” in the budget book.)
None of this happens without the school budget, which is as much a statement of values as the fuel to achieve the mission.
Great Neck has consistently supported public education and voted to adopt its budget. But that support can no longer be taken for granted. The anti-tax movement has been a constant, but has morphed into a growing anti-public education/anti-government movement. Education, along with public health (and climate change) has become a victim of politically motivated culture wars.
So what’s in the budget and how does that translate into your tax bill?
The general fund appropriation for 2022-23 is $261,432,690, up 3.66 percent from $252,194,682 (but down from the first draft because of an increase in state aid going toward the universal pre-K expense). Of this, $222,658,679 is to be raised by real property tax, 2.57 percent more than the current year and within the allowed state tax cap (they could have raised property taxes as much as a 3.36 percent and stay within the cap). State aid comes in at $10,822,541.
These figures pertain to the total budget and the community tax levy as a whole. But homeowners find their own school taxes change more. This is for a number of reasons, but a key one is that for probably 20 years Nassau County, the assessing authority, has had four separate tax categories and has been shifting more of the tax burden from commercial and multi-family properties onto single-family residences. Business Superintendent John Powell pointed out that the share of the property tax pie that comes from single-family residential owners has risen from 63 percent in 2010-11 to 71 percent in 2021-22. This means that even if the school district did not raise property taxes at all, homeowners would still see an increase.
Now, unlike the income tax, the property tax to fund schools is based on an actual to the dollar amount of operating expenses, and your home’s assessed value represents your share of that total pie. The assessed value of your home – your share of the pie – may have increased. And when taxpayers grieve their rates and win reductions, their share of the pie gets reduced but the difference has to be made up by the rest of taxpayers to cover the total budget pie.
The state has imposed limits on a local school district’s ability to increase property taxes by legislating a tax cap – a complicated formula that roughly limits the increase in the amount that can be raised from property tax revenue to 2 percent or the CPI, whichever is less (one year the district was limited to 0.17 percent) but does not reflect increased enrollment. If the cap is breached, a super majority vote is required to pass the budget. Our district has never breached the cap, even before it was a legislated mandate.
Many districts have been forced to cannibalize their programs to the point they only can offer what is absolutely mandated. But to preserve its programs, this district (as many others) has relied more on capital projects (the debt service is not counted toward the cap) and go into its fund balance and reserves. This year that amount is $8,514,076, up from $3,164,205, and another $5 million from reserves.
Tax-exemptions allowed by the county’s Industrial Development Agency also impact the budget – in essence, what these commercial enterprises don’t pay in property tax (Payments in Lieu of Taxes, or PILOTs) has to be made up – you guessed it – by homeowners.
So in 2010, there were three IDA exemptions totaling $54,418,300 in “equalized value” – 0.31 percent of IDA property value exempted. But in 2022, there were 15 such exemptions, totaling $172,954,108 and 0.95 percent of value exempted.
And when you look at all exemptions – seniors, veterans – there were 13,080 in 2010 amounting to $2,769,100,900 in equalized value, for a total of 15.6 percent of all value exempted. By 2022, the number of exemptions has grown to 18,172, and the total value ballooned to $6.923,288,131, 37.7 percent of all value exempted. Exemptions for one means higher tax burden for others.
This amount is increasing with more multi-family projects going up – totaling some 500 units – which will add to school enrollment, but also the amount of tax revenue lost to PILOTs.
Meanwhile, while school districts are funded as much as 50 percent from state aid (New York City, Roosevelt), only 4.1 percent of Great Neck’s 2022-2023 budget is projected to be funded from state aid ($10,822,541). Federal and other sources will cover 5 percent, and appropriated fund balance and reserves will account for 5.6 percent. This leaves 85.19 percent, $223,756,176, to be raised from property tax (though the amount has been more than 90 percent in the past) – a larger share of the budget pie than most school districts.
Why does the school budget continue to increase?
In the first place, in contrast to many other school districts, Great Neck’s K-12 student enrollment continues to rise and is projected to reach 6,546 next term. To preserve the low-class size standards that have proved such a strong factor in our students’ success, additional teachers and services need to be added. Also, because the district is placing greater focus on students’ mental and emotional health, the district is adding guidance counselors – two being added for elementary schools and four for secondary schools.
Moreover, the budget supports far more than the 6,546 K-12 students (plus 236 pre-K, also a growing number) enrolled in the district’s schools, but some 2,000 students who attend parochial, private and special education situations, for which the district funds transportation ($6 million), health services, nurses, textbooks, library materials, software, CARES Act, psychologists, special education teachers, speech therapist, equipment repairs and instructional supplies – totaling $7,503,532.
In addition, there are items paid from the operating budget that are repaid through revenue, or which support the broader community – like Adult Education, GED, summer recreation and enrichment programs.
For this reason (for those who think we spend too lavishly per pupil), taking the total operating budget and dividing by the 6,546 enrolled K-12 students is not the way to determine the per-pupil expenditure. The more accurate per-pupil amount is $18,000 for elementary students, $25,000 for secondary students (on par with comparable districts), while the expenditure for special education students, which is determined by their IEP, can be as much as $90,000.
Also, a significant portion of the budget are mandated expenses from the state. For example, the mandated contribution to the Group Health Plan is up $2.3 million from last year to $31,788,196, the contribution to the Teachers Retirement System is up $1 million to $11,967,295.
(See details about the budget at https://www.greatneck.k12.ny.us/Page/15211)
Vote Tuesday, May 17, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. to support our best investment in our community, our future, our society – our schools (see www.greatneck.k12.ny.us/voting or call 516-441-4020).