Elwood voters passed a $53-million spending budget on Tuesday for the 2011-12 school year.
With a final tally of 1,779 to 1,129 in favor, homeowners within the can expect to see a 7.98 percent increase in their collective tax levy in the following year. That translates to a $229.41 tax rate per $100 of assessed value, an 8.91 percent increase.
"I congratulate this community for supporting their kids and voting yes," Superintendent Peter Scordo said after the results were announced.
Trustee candidates Bill Gutekunst and Mike LaMena defeated James Tomeo and Jack Schwartz.
"Nothing pleased me more today than the number of voters who turned out to express their feelings," said Trustee Andrew Kaplan.
Voting took place in the Elwood Middle School from 2-10 p.m.
Read more coverage on Northport Patch Wednesday.
At the reorganization meeting of any board of education, at the first meeting of the new school year, the entire board elects a president and a vice president. Each board is reconstituted at each new school year, and nobody "inherits" a position; they are simply elected a trustee of the school district. That correction noted, I look forward to a new school year with the two most qualified candidates succeeding two superb trustees who are retiring. This is the most challenging time, during my lifetime, for boards of education to deal with the fiscal constraints imposed by the State before the governor and legislators have even remediated the problems which the State itself imposed upon school districts in terms of obscene costs and labor management restrictions. Mr. Gutekunst and Mr. LaMena will have their hands full, but I do believe they are up for the challenge.
As a member of the Audit Committee, and the Citizens Finance/Budget Advisory Committee, and a retired corporate finance executive, and a seventeen-year resident of this school district, I think I know a lot more about Elwood than you do. One of the main things that you do not know is that Elwood has had a tradition of NOT secretly socking away unneeded tax increases, and tucking them away so that a BOE could play around with them at will to manipulate tax rates. That is exactly what many districts were doing this year to create artificially low budget increases and/or artificially low tax levy increases. NY State screwed all of us, Elwood included, but Elwood's BOE has been honest with its citizens, which is more than I can say for most districts in Suffolk County. If you want to be constructive -- which I somehow doubt by the tone of your poisonous remarks -- you would get off your butt and convert your vitriol to criticize the windbag State legislators, as well as present and former governors, who have saddled school districts with expensive mandates that they do not fund (or insufficiently fund), and who have imposed a pension structure which is absurdly generous and grossly burdensome on the districts, and who have tied the hands of districts in terms of having any power with their unions.
As per Wikipedia, Elwood had a population of approximately 11,000 as per the 2000 census, I assume its a bit more now or even right about there, so I just wonder are there a lot of homeowners/residents who really don't care one way or the other and don't bother voting? I live in ENPT but in the Northport/East Northport school district but just wondering if this was a record turnout or not.
First of all, my own private recommendations to the Superintendent and BOE, as a charter member of our Citizens Finance/Budget Advisory Committee, was for a budget increase considerably lower, for some of the reasons which you cite, and for reasons of strategy. My recommendations were not accepted, but the BOE took a gutsy decision - to allow the community to decide if they wanted even more drastic cuts than were going to take place, or to support the larger budget with the missing State funding - and the community, not me, nor some secretive outsider, made a decision which, frankly, surprised me. Second, you know nothing whatsoever about my personal financial circumstances. I have been on a fixed income for nearly eleven years, since I took early retirement to preserve what was left of my declining health, and even an increase of 5% or 6% are real burdens for me and my family. And, yes, I am going to have to move out of State. As to the overly generous pay packages for teachers, you can't do anything about what is in the contract, and, because the State screwed us all with the Taylor Law and the Triborough Amendment, you can't even negotiate from a position of strength. Try learning about sequential processes, and State politics.
Sometime later today I'll be going back through my own records to compare both the budget votes in past years, and all contested BOE elections. It was precisely the fact that we had a hotly-contested BOE election that we did get so many coming out to vote yesterday; that is an historical pattern, for us at least, whatever the comparative numbers. As I'm sure you know, the American people do not even vote in national elections in what most nations would consider impressive numbers, and school district election and budget votes are even more pathetic in terms of response. Perhaps some local academic has done a paper on voter turnout for school district elections on Long Island, and I hope we will all hear from someone who may know of such a study, and can cite statistics.
Anyway, moving on to the facts and constructive dialogue and putting emotions aside, I think we are more on the same page than not. It is a shame that you have to move because of the taxes. This is EXACTLY what I am so irate about. We have trees in our yard planted when my children were very young, one for each, and it brings a lump to my throat to think about leaving those trees behind and selling our home which has so many other memories. (see part 2)