Increased School District Budget Passed
By David Crohn

Voters overwhelmingly passed the Fire Island Union Free School District budget last Tuesday, approving a 6.3 percent increase. The new budget is $5,542,122, up from $5,256,567 last year.

There were 122 votes for the 2006-07 budget, 62 against.

Voters also rehired two incumbent school board trustees: President Winifred Loeffler, who has served on the board for 37 years, received 87 votes, and Amy Wood received 136. Lisa Kauffman was also voted to the board, with 123 votes. She will replace James Ragusa, who stepped down as vice president.

The budget includes additional expenses that reflect new state mandates and increased diversity in the area. The district is spending $27,000 on a part-time ESL teacher for two new students, and—as part of a statewide response to a recent school scandal in Roslyn, Long Island—$40,000 to hire part-time business administrators.

“School districts are trying to create more checks and balances in their business departments,” said Superintendent Wendell Chu. “And part of that is to have more people doing various different duties.” Roslyn district officials were recently found guilty of stealing $11 million from their schools.

One department in which the district has managed to save money is in teachers’ salaries, by outsourcing technology teaching positions off island at a lower price from Eastern Suffolk BOCES.

“When we can do that and create some economy, then we do,” Chu said.

Salaries for 11 teachers, including substitutes and part-timers, add up to $794,059, which is $102,011 less than last year’s total.

The district will spend $30,000 for adult education classes, the same amount as last year. Over the winter, yoga, knitting, sewing and computer courses were taught at the Woodhull School as part of the program. Instructors received stipends of $300 each as compensation.

Fire Island residents will be shouldering a tax increase of seven percent—the second lowest tax burden in Long Island. Still, the district’s small enrollment levels has some residents questioning the need for all the money.

“People are not going to say, ‘Is it the cheapest on LI?’ They are going to say, ‘How much does it cost per pupil?’” said Ginny Horton, a onetime district treasurer and year-round resident of Ocean Bay Park who saw all five of her children through the Woodhull School. “[The spending] just keeps going on and on.”

This year there will be 43 students at the Woodhull School, the district’s only school, from grades pre-K to sixth grade. The district pays for an additional 44 kids to go to high school in Bay Shore.

“We try to keep expenses as low as possible,” Chu said. “But I don’t know how much lower we can go and still service kids.”

He said the nationwide No Child Left Behind Act also made an impact. The Act requires standardized testing from third through eighth grade, and “If [the district has] any inkling that some kids can’t meet the standards we have to give them additional support and that’s expensive,” Chu said.