Island Trees BOE Votes BOCES Budget Down

Story by Chris Boyle.

On Wednesday, April 17, Nassau County school districts gathered together to vote on the Nassau BOCES Administrative budget for the 2013-14 school year. At least one of them – Island Trees – has decided to vote it down.

Assistant Superintendent for Business Susan Hlavenka said that the Board of Education vetoing BOCES’ proposed next-year budget of $19,686,115 is their way of sending a message of fiscal responsibility. 

“They increased their rate and we have no other means of control over how they increase their rate, other than with our vote,” she said. “It’s the same way that the taxpayers vote on our budget, we vote on theirs...their increase was excessive. It was way above two percent. The school districts have a two percent Tax cap...BOCES doesn’t. It’s not fair.” 

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The school board also voted on three members candidates running for three vacant BOCES Board of Trustees seats. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Charles J. Murphy also gave an update on the district’s efforts to tighten up security in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings back in December of 2012. 

“Post-Newtown, we were very concerned, and we prepared to build moats and giant walls around the schools of the district,” he said. “But since that time, we’ve decided to implement a few things, and things are much better than they were pre-Newtown.” 

New measures added to keep students and staff safe include a new guard at the Elementary school; keeping doors locked at all times; and requiring identification of all individuals entering the building at any time.

However, Dr. Murphy said that he felt that it was time for Island Trees to step back and re-evaluate its stance on where and when to improve security in its schools to make sure that the changes they make are truly effective. 

“We need to take a look at things before we sink hundreds of thousands of dollars into security,” he said. “We’ve talked about adding intercoms and video cameras, but if someone is asking to enter the school, you really can’t see someone’s identification or their entire person through that camera screen...the individual could be holding a gun off-camera and we wouldn’t know."

I feel that person-to-person contact is very important, where someone can look out the window and actually see the individual would be safer," he said. 

The Board of Education, after some discussion, agreed that looking into an electronic identification card swipe system for staff members to gain entry to the school’s buildings would possibly be an effective addition to the District’s security protocols 

The cost of school lunches will also be going up in the 2013-2014 school year- according to Hlavenka, lunches in the Elementary school, currently $1.50, will go up to $1.75 next year. In addition, lunches at the High School, currently $1.75, will increase to $2.00.

A 2013-14 community budget presentation will be held on Monday, April 22, 7 p.m. at ITMMS.