The Roslyn School District Board of Education held its third budget presentation during its regular meeting on Thursday, March 20. Administrators discussed decreases in state aid and announced a proposed budget that the board will approve in April.
The school’s recommended budget for the 2025-2026 school year is $136,811,323, which is $4,244,153, or 3.2% higher than last year’s budget. Based on a calculation by Schneps Media LI by dividing the budget and student enrollment, Roslyn School District would spend around $40,700 per pupil if the budget remains unchanged.
Susan Warren, Roslyn School District assistant superintendent for business and administration, said the district is on track to see decreases in the state aid ratio by around 9% for transportation, BOCES, and building expenses.
Despite this, Roslyn Superintendent Alison Brown said the proposed tax levy would increase by 2.89%, below the state’s levy limit of 3.14%. The district said that budget savings from faculty and staff retirements this year, along with higher interest rates and applied reserves help keep the budget below the tax cap.
Roslyn Board of Education President Meryl Ben-Levy said that the increasing costs of running the district’s universal pre-k program are projected to be higher than the increase in state aid for universal pre-k, resulting in a .28% increase to the tax levy. Without these costs, the levy would increase by around 2.6%.
“The decrease [in state aid] is like moving the goal post mid-game,” Ben-Levy said. “This is money we’ve already spent counting on consistent state aid with what we have gotten in past years, and this is a drastic drop suddenly. It is fundamentally unfair. Something we would never do to any of our children is mid-game, move the goal post, tell them something, expect them to rely on it, and then when it comes time, tell them it’s a whole other different ball game, that’s not what you do.”
The board also raised concerns about $99,000 in unpaid state reimbursements from 2013-2018, which they said the state would not repay for at least 16 to 18 years.
Meanwhile, the district owes the state approximately $62,000, which the district said must be paid immediately. The state will not allow the district to offset the two amounts, which would have netted out to the state owing the district $36,000.
“While state aid numbers indicate funding for Pre-K, it is misleading because the district does not receive this money or operate the program,” said Brown. “Instead, the funds go to a third-party entity, creating the false impression that the district has more aid than it actually does. In reality, the district incurred approximately $100,000 in costs to meet state-imposed obligations related to this initiative.”
The next Roslyn School District Board of Education meeting is on Thursday, April 10. At that meeting, the board will vote to adopt the budget, which residents will vote on Tuesday, May 20.
