Job cuts on Dix Hills school budget ballot

The Half Hollow Hills school board voted Thursday to finalize its proposed $221.9 million budget for 2012-13.

The budget represents a 2.75 percent increase over the current budget, and calls for a tax levy increase of 2.33 percent, which falls within the state-required 2 percent tax cap with allowed exemptions.

More than $9 million in cuts were made in the finalized budget, including 14 teaching positions at the elementary level and four teachers at the middle-school level due to declining enrollment, as well as teaching positions at these levels in art, music, physical education and health. Several districtwide personnel cuts were made, including three reading specialists, a job coach, 10 hallway monitors and a special-education literacy specialist. Additional cuts include a dean at High School East, a psychologist at Candlewood Middle School, a middle-school guidance counselor and some world-language teachers.

Administrators will take a two-year hard salary freeze, and two central-office managerial positions will be cut, along with 10 paraprofessionals, six clerical workers, one custodian and one bus-driving position, which currently is unfilled.

The finalized budget will go before voters on May 15.

Above: Half Hollow Hills High School East in Dix Hills.