Mineola School Board Denies Petition to Keep All Buildings Open

The Mineola Board of Education rejected a request by 160 residents that a proposition be included with the to keep all seven school buildings open along with the current grade configuration for the 2011-12 school year and beyond.

Board vice-President Christine Napolitano believed placing the petition in front of voters Tuesday would have undone all of the board’s work in in order to avoid hefty tax increases.

“We’ve been talking about this issue for years,” she said Thursday night at a workshop meeting at the . “We’re putting a bond vote in front of the public on Feb. 8 and now we’re going to turn around and say ‘nevermind, let’s go back to the drawing board and your vote didn’t matter and let’s keep all seven buildings open and we’ll see what happens with the budget’.”

The petition calls for both and Willis Avenue Schools to remain open.

“I wonder if those same individuals who signed it would also have said ‘and I agree to ay the 7 percent tax hike this year and whatever it’s going to take the following years’,” Napolitano questioned, noting a majority of the petitioners came from the same area of the district.

The board tabled the measure at its last meeting on Jan. 20, and it several board members felt that it was extremely close to add another measure to the Feb. 8 initiative.

Board President Terence Hale stated that the board’s counsel of Feldman-Frasier described placing the measure on the Feb. 8 ballot as “untimely,” a label with which Trustee John McGrath did not agree.

“Even if counsel’s correct, you can put it on the ballot subsequent to the bond vote Tuesday,” McGrath said, believing the reconfiguration is governed under education law and connected to local finance law. “It appeared as though the petition was served on the district within a time frame governed by both of those sections, the way I read it,” McGrath said, but admitted that “I could be wrong.”

Superintendent Dr. Michael Nagler pointed out that the petition if voted upon by the public “can only be used in an advisory capacity.” 

The cost of the rollover from a tax levy perspective would be a $5.6 million increase over the current $85 million budget according to Asst. Supt. of FInance Jack Waters. The increase would equal about a 7 percent levy increase.

The New York State Senate recently on local property taxes, a bill heavily favors.

“We’re closing a building and reorganizing this whole district and we would have trouble making a two percent cap,” Dr. Nagler said. “Without cutting programs I don’t think we could deliver a 2 percent levy.”

In order to override the two percent cap, a 60 percent majority of voters must approve the measure, and if not, the district must either be at or below 2 percent “for the simple majority of 50 percent to pass it,” or go to a zero percent increase Nagler said. “What used to be a contingency budget... it’s gone.”

McGrath argued however that “160 people signed a petition asking for a choice, I say we give it to them,” but was ultimately voted down three-to-two.

About 15,000 registered voters reside in the district and about 2,500 come out to vote in school district budget on average each year.