East Williston’s school board brought department directors to its March 12 meeting to explain its proposed athletics, technology, and ENL budgets for the next school year.
These three categories fall under the district’s proposed $72,451,806 budget for 2025-2026, 1.79% more than last year’s budget of $71,177,806. At it’s first budget meeting, the district projected a 2.45% tax levy increase to fund the budget.
The district projects that 85% of the budget will be funded by the tax levy, 10% by state aid, 1% by the district’s reserves, and 3% by other means, Deputy Superintendent Diane Castonguay said on Wednesday.
The proposed English as a New Language budget for the upcoming school year is $7,520. The budget will support kindergarten through 12th-grade students whose first language is not English learning the language. Currently, 12 non-English languages, including Farsi, Chinese, Spanish, and Russian, are spoken across the district’s schools.
The district projects 80 ENL students across its three schools during the current school year.
Michael Scaturro, director of health, physical education, athletics, medical services, and family and consumer sciences, said the athletic department’s proposed budget of $251,070 for the upcoming year is a $30,319 decrease from the prior year.
The budget includes equipment, supplies, special programs, and professional development for coaches and has a few notable line items this year. Those include a softball pitching machine, a track jumping pit cover, a backboard replacement in Wheatley High School, and a platform for sports registration.
Director of technology and innovation Stacey Weinberg presented a proposed $131,942 financial plan for the district’s technology needs. She said the budget would include district-wide software, devices, laptops for some students, replacement TV units, certain technology-related field trips, and more.
All three of these budget components experienced a decrease from the current year’s budget to the proposed budget.
East Williston School District residents can vote on the district’s proposed budget on May 20 between 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Wheatley School gymnasium. The board will hold a third budget workshop on March 19, final budget deliberations on April 7, and a budget hearing on May 12 prior to the vote. All residents must be registered to vote with Nassau County to cast a ballot.
