South Country school district proposes cutting 51 positions

The South Country school district has proposed cutting dozens of positions, including teachers, librarians and other support staff, to help make up for a $3 million budget hole for the upcoming school year.

The school board last week voted to adopt a $147 million spending plan that represents a 2.87% increase from the current budget. It includes a 3.48% tax levy increase, which is equal to the tax cap.

The budget, which will go before voters on May 20, calls for the elimination of 51.2 positions, including 28 full-time teachers, officials in the Suffolk County district said. Thirteen of the total would be retirements. The reduction in instructional staff would bring the teacher-to-student ratio from 10:1 to 11:1.

The non-instructional positions to be eliminated include teaching assistants, custodial workers and safety officers, according to a district presentation last week. Other reductions include supplies, equipment and contractual services.

Superintendent Antonio Santana said in an email Monday no programs would be cut.

Patrick Brady, president of the Bellport Teachers Association that represents teachers, social workers and others, said staffing cuts would negatively affect students.

“Of course, we're worried about job loss,” he said. “Our greatest concern is what is going to be the lasting impact on our students. … We're still coming out of the COVID years. Our students still need as much support as we can give them.”

Declining enrollment, rising costs

South Country is among a growing number of Long Island districts grappling with budget deficits. Sachem earlier this year considered closing a school, a measure board members voted down in March. Hempstead faces a $34 million shortfall and has proposed shuttering a school.

Trustee Cheryl Felice, the lone dissenter in rejecting the budget at the April 23 meeting, said in an interview she’s concerned about losing librarians at the elementary level and reading teachers at Bellport High School.

“The reading teachers were in my opinion responsible for enhancing our graduation rate,” Felice said. “How is our graduation rate going to thrive if we're letting go the very teachers who are responsible for increasing the graduation rate?”

Officials cited declining enrollment and rising costs as main reasons driving the shortfall.

Since 2014, the district saw nearly 600 fewer students with 3,845 enrolled in 2024, representing a 13% drop. Meanwhile, school officials said the district has seen rising costs in health insurance, transportation and educating more students who are English language learners and those with special needs.

“It's like a perfect storm of expenses that really couldn't be anticipated,” board President Chris Picini said Monday. “We knew that the building aid was going to drop by $1.8 million. We knew our special education costs were going up, but bussing and insurance came out of nowhere.”

Building aid is a reimbursement districts receive from the state over a number of years for money districts spend on capital projects.

Picini said the decision to cut staff was not taken lightly, as school officials try to balance their responsibilities to students, staff, taxpayers and the community at large.

“No one wants to do this. I want everybody to keep their job,” he said. “But we are just in an incredibly difficult situation that we didn't see coming, and we really don't have many options to pivot in a different way to save it.”

Picini said staffing cuts would not affect the educational services in South Country, calling it “almost a staff correction” that reflects a decreased student population. For areas that have fewer staff, he said others would fill in.

For example, the district plans to eliminate a dual language coordinator position. He said, “We have a director of dual language who can assume some of those responsibilities."

But Brady, using librarians as an example, said the expertise of a school librarian cannot be easily filled by others. “To me, that’s a programmatic cut,” he said.

Felice also expressed skepticism that student programs won’t be affected.

“I'm just not convinced that what we're going to be left with is still going to be strong enough to support the programs that we have,” she said.

The South Country district has proposed cutting 51.2 positions. An earlier version of this story included an incorrect headline.

By Dandan Zou

dandan.zou@newsday.com@DandanZou

Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.