Elwood, Shelter Island school budget re-vote: Here's what you need to know

Two school districts that unsuccessfully tried to pierce their tax caps last month will present scaled-down spending plans to voters that call for cuts to preschool education, summer school and funding for academic intervention.

Voters in both districts will go to the polls on June 17.

In Elwood, voters will decide on a $78,566,259 spending plan for the 2025-26 school year. The budget includes a 2.64% increase in the school property tax levy, the district said.

That increase would also exceed the district's state-imposed limit of 1.29%, but at a lower rate than the district had initially proposed. The spending plan would again need a supermajority of 60% of votes to pass.

Shelter Island voters will consider a $13,298,131 school budget. The spending plan will stay within the district’s 2.13% tax cap, so it requires a simple majority.

In both districts, the measures that went before voters on May 20 earned the support of 54% to 55% of voters — less than a supermajority. Elwood and Shelter Island were the only districts on Long Island whose budgets failed last month.

If a district’s budget fails on its second try, the district is required to adopt a contingency budget that includes no tax increase from the previous year.

Across Long Island, districts are "struggling" to cope with the impact of inflation, which has outpaced gains in state aid, said Robert Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association. If a district needs to adopt a contingency budget, that results in "dramatic cuts" to programs and staffing, he said.

"It is something that takes a long time for a district to recover from," he said.

Spending cuts, larger class sizes

In their new version of the budget, Elwood school officials trimmed nearly $830,000 from the proposed $79.4 million spending plan that failed last month. The previous version included a school property tax increase of 4.2%.

The new budget “includes strategic reductions that take the community’s input on the initial proposal into consideration” and also “continues to safeguard the investment the community has made in our schools and students," Elwood’s superintendent of schools, Gayle Steele, said in a statement.

At a public meeting on Monday, school officials said the district is making cuts in library, technology integration, academic intervention, paraprofessional, clerical and custodial staff, as well as professional development, transportation, supplies and co-curricular clubs, and slightly increasing class sizes in certain grades.

School officials aimed to limit the impact on students as much as possible while protecting voters’ pocketbooks, James Tomeo, the Elwood school board’s president, said in an interview. “We’re in the business of education,” while also acting as “fiduciaries” for taxpayers, he said.

In Shelter Island, School Superintendent Brian Doelger said at a public presentation about the new budget last month that the district cut more than $550,000 from the previous proposal by eliminating the pre-K program for 3-year-olds and the general education summer school, among other expenses. The failed $13.86 million proposal called for a school property tax increase of 6.97%.

“Obviously none of these reductions are welcomed, but reductions are needed to deliver a budget that is property tax cap compliant,” Doelger said.

Kathleen Lynch, the Shelter Island school board president, said at the meeting that school officials had to make the cuts, since adopting a contingency budget would be “absolutely devastating.”

In a statement, Shelter Island school officials said the district “deeply values the voice of our community.” They said the district and board “thoughtfully and thoroughly revised the proposal to bring the tax levy within the state tax cap. Our priority remains to align with community expectations while maintaining the integrity of our educational programs and supporting student success.”

By Maura McDermott

maura.mcdermott@newsday.commauramcdermott

Maura McDermott covers education. Since joining Newsday in 2012, she also has worked on the investigations team and covered real estate and the business of health care.