Sewanhaka District 2011-12 Budget Overview

The 's budget was dramatically changed after the teachers took concessions at the beginning of this month and as a result the teachers will have a salary freeze for the next school year.

The Sewanhaka school district includes five high schools: , Floral Park High School, Elmont High School, H. Frank Carey High School and Sewanhaka.

New Hyde Park Patch broke the news about the , which will save the district approximately $2.1 million. The teachers next year will be in the third year of a three-year negotiated contract and they were previously scheduled to receive a 2.9 percent raise.

"We are very appreciative of the teachers for helping us to preserve jobs and programs," said after the concessions were achieved.

Because of this concession, there are no further scheduled layoffs or program cuts in the district. This change brought the tax levy down to 5.2 percent, which represents a 3.8 percent increase from the previous year. The last version of the budget included a 7.2 percent tax levy, which would have been a budget-to-budget increase of 5.4 percent. 

The district is also trying to lower the budget through a retirement incentive, Meierdiercks noted during a recent presentation to the . He hopes the district will achieve another approximately $400,000 in budget savings through this incentive. Meierdiercks expects to replace some teachers who have been in the district for several years and make a higher salary with some newer teachers who might make about half that salary through this incentive.

The district, which Meierdiercks described to the Independent Seniors as "frugal," spends $17,287 per student to educate while the Nassau County average is $23,535. The Sewanhaka district is 54 out of 57 in expenses spent to educate students, Meierdiercks noted.

In a previous version of the budget, which had an 8.7 percent tax levy and a 6.6 percent budget-to-budget increase, the prospect of a contingency budget was discussed. At that point, if the budget was defeated twice, there would have to be another $7.3 million in cuts to reach a 1.92 percent budget-to-budget increase.

Meierdiercks considers this latest version of the budget "very reasonable."