Navarra Elected as Voters Pass 2013-14 Mineola School Budget

Mineola residents came out to pass the 2013-14 school budget by a nearly two-to-one margin Tuesday night, casting over 1,700 ballots in the election.

The $86.14 million budget passed 1,110-638. The 2013-14 budget totaled $86,143,656, a 2.56 percent increase over 2012-13, or about $2.151 million. The tax levy for the 2013-14 school year will total $77,906,690, a 2.18 percent increase from 2012-13, or about $1.664 million.

The budget keeps all current educational and curricular programs, sports and activities, maintains staff development and continues expansion of the district technology program.

“We look forward to continue being fiscally responsible and having wonderful educational programs,” Mineola School Superintendent Dr. Michael Nagler said.
The board will also welcome the newest member in July in Patricia Navarra, who won a seat over incumbent Irene Parrino by a vote tally of 933-684.

“Of course I’m thrilled, look at all these wonderful people I get to work with,” Navarra said after giving a thumbs up as she left the principal’s office at the Jackson Avenue School before the results were officially announced. “I’m humbled and honored and thank Mrs. Parrino for her service, thank everyone for coming out to vote today and passing the budget.”

The board had settled on two polling places for this year’s election: Jackson Avenue School and the Meadow Drive School.

At Jackson, voters passed the budget 667-387 and voted for Navarra 579-367. At Meadow, residents also voted in favor of the budget 443-251, but the race was much closer for trustee with Navarra narrowly beating Parrino 354-317.
Navarra attributed her success to relying totally on what she termed “social networking” with her relatives campaigning for her and not spending a single dime on her campaign.

“My family’s very well-established here so I give them a lot of credit,” she said. “That was very helpful.”

Campaign signs encouraging residents to vote for Parrino could be seen in the Mineola area and along Jericho Turnpike on Tuesday.

“I feel comfortable with what I did in my campaign,” Parrino said after the results were announced. The outgoing trustee had been criticized for her comments made about the educational status of children of several other sitting board trustees as well as her challenger and also received a lengthy reply from board president William Hornberger at the May 16 board of education meeting.

“I’ve campaigned for every one of them at some point,” Navarra said of her future colleagues on the board. “I’ve also had fights with every one of them at some point, so it’ll be fun; we have different skill sets and we work well together and we’ve done a lot of projects in the community together, we’ve raised money for guide dogs and put up Mustang walls, so it’ll be fun to work with these fine people.”

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