By Jessica Taylor
The North Shore School District presented a proposed $115.9 million budget Thursday night for the 2022-23 school year. The public will vote on May 17, if approved the budget will take effect July 1, the beginning of the fiscal year.
Interim Superintendent Dr. Tom Dolan discussed three main updates on the 2022-23 budget including commercial liabilities/BOCES administration, supervision of instruction, and employee benefits.
The district’s general and commercial liabilities as well as BOCES administration and capital costs for the 2022-23 school year would be $996,286.68 which is an increase of $14,158.59. These costs are estimated to increase around 4.5 percent next year.
Since the district is a member of the New York Schools Insurance Reciprocal, it usually has some protection from the high costs of the commercial insurance market but the district should expect higher costs next year due to storm-related and cyberattacks nationwide. BOCES costs will also increase due to the rising costs of health insurance.
For the 2022-23 school year supervision of instruction is estimated to cost $5,999,360.72 an increase of $415,562.80. This will cover the salaries of the superintendent for instruction, building principals, directors, clerical and secretarial support, professional development, and instructional software.
It also includes the cost to reinstate the position of Elementary Assistant Director of Special Education, which was eliminated in the 2021-22 budget.
Assistant Superintendent Dr. Christopher Zublionis commented on the importance of instructional software saying that a major lesson learned was that assistive technology is “beneficial to all students,” not just the students classified with a disability.
He continued “That’s another lesson we learned from the pandemic as well, due to the need to rely on instructional technology”.
Employee benefits account for more than 25 percent of the 2022-23 total budget. This will include pension costs for teachers, administrators and teachers assistants in the Teachers Retirement System; pension cost for all support staff in the Employee Retirement System, as well as the district’s share of Social Security, Medicare taxes, workers compensation, unemployment, health, life and dental insurances.
The Teachers Retirement System is up $538,693.66 and the Employee Retirement System is down $423,513.59. Social Security and Medicare is up $367,882.04. Health insurance costs are expected to increase by approximately $1.4 million.
The next North Shore School board of education meeting will take place on Thursday, March 24.
