Copiague school district voters approve bond for urgent repairs, reject bond for other projects

More than 1,000 Copiague voters Monday narrowly approved a bond proposal for $42.9 million in school repairs that district officials said were desperately needed for aging and crowded buildings. Voters rejected a second bond, for $15.1 million, that would have funded less urgent projects.

The main proposal passed 531-516. The second proposal fell 502-471.

Passage of the main bond "will enable us to move forward with the repairs and improvements needed in our schools," Superintendent Kathleen Bannon said in a statement released by a representative Monday night.

The school board will discuss how to address work that would have been funded by the second bond, Bannon said.

Voting at Great Neck Road Elementary School concluded at 10 p.m.

The New York State building aid will reimburse three-quarters of the cost of the $42.9 million measure, leaving the hamlet's taxpayers responsible for about $10.7 million of the total.

The measure approved Monday night would pay for more classrooms and repairs to masonry, plumbing and electrical systems at or near the end of their working lives.

The failed measure would have covered repairs on items like flooring, heating and lighting that officials said were less urgent but still needed.

The measure that was approved adds $131.76 a year over the 15-year term of the bond for a typical home assessed at $3,600 and paying school taxes of $4,922.

District officials reduced the total cost, sought grants and split the project funding into the two bonds after voters last year decisively rejected a $69.4 million bond proposal.

That referendum drew just more than 1,000 voters in a hamlet of 22,155. District officials responded this year with an information campaign carried out in public meetings, school tours, on the Web and in mailings, designed to make their case for improvements and to boost voter turnout.

Sandra Campbell, a medical assistant whose granddaughter attends third grade at the school, said in an interview earlier this month that she was willing to pay higher taxes if it meant improving schools that she says play a central role in community life. "We raise taxes for a whole lot of things, and this is necessary," she said.

The first tour, at Susan E. Wiley Elementary School earlier this month, drew about a dozen parents and guardians, some of whom said the tour only solidified their support for both of the bonds.

Median income in Copiague is about $72,432, significantly lower than average for both Suffolk and Nassau counties, and for the 2012-13 school year, the state Education Department judged 65 percent of Copiague students to be "economically disadvantaged."