Independent Seniors Get Budget Lesson

and Assistant Superintendent for Business Michael Frank told the seniors at the Tuesday afternoon Independent Seniors of New Hyde Park luncheon at about the current state of their budget.

Katulak explained that four out of five technology projects were cut from the budget to try to keep taxes down. The current tax levy in this version of the budget is 5.41. Katulak sympathized with the group about how people on a fixed income would have a hard time if the budget were to be too high.

"The kids have programs but you won't be taxed excessively," he said.

Frank added, "We did everything we could do reduce the budget as much as we possibly could."

About three quarters of this year's budget has to do with salaries and benefits, Frank explained. Those benefits have gone up in the case of the teacher retirement system from about 8.62 percent to about 11.5 percent, Frank said.

Katulak noted that some contract negotiations have been discussed and that those people who have had re-negotiations will be contributing more toward their medical benefits. The teachers contracts expire in June, 2012.

Frank also explained how the contingency budget works. This budget, which is about $40 different than the proposed budget, might mean cutting staff because certain areas, such as equipment, under the contingency budget and its set of rules would be slashed and if there are no supplies for a program, then there is no program. This impact would be noticed next school year if the contingency budget needed to be used this year.