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Armand D’Accordo

Northport Superintendent Robert Banzer and Board President Andrew Rapiejko discuss how to handle the vote that could lead to a decrease in board member size. Photo by Victoria Espinoza.

Northport residents will officially have a chance to reduce the size of the Northport-East Northport Board of Education this spring.

The board passed a resolution at Thursday night’s meeting that will add a proposition to the budget vote this spring to decrease the membership of the board from nine trustees to seven.

The United Taxpayers of Northport-East Northport came to the board with a petition in June saying that nine members have made the board less effective.

In their petition the United Taxpayers stated “statistical and anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that school districts operate in a more effective and efficient manner when the composition of the board is limited to no more than seven board members.”

Armand D’Accordo, a member of the group, backed up its sentiment.

“I have gotten the sense at board meetings — both through watching and interacting — that it seems a bit dysfunctional, due to the makeup of how many members and how long they’ve been around,” D’Accordo said in a previous interview.

He also said the organization became interested in this idea after reading a study by Nina Dorata, titled “School District Boards, Audit Committees, and Budget Oversight: Seeking a Formula for Good Governance,” published in the March 2013 issue of the CPA Journal, which exposed the correlation between school district budget increases and tenure of board members.

“I do feel confident in the public,” D’Accordo said of the resolution passing. “There is a general sense I have been getting while collecting signatures for this petition that the public wants a smaller school board.”

Trustees have said they do not think this is a necessary step.

“We have a large and diverse community with a lot of different areas to represent,” Vice President David Badanes said in a previous interview. “The more people that participate gives you more eyes for each issue. The statistics are speculative and so far the arguments do not convince me.”

After the vote, Trustee Jennifer Thompson asked if the district would be held responsible to inform the public on this issue.

“Since this proposition came from the community and not the board or the district, how will the community be informed of the pros and cons of it?” she asked at the meeting. “Who is responsible for disseminating that information?”

Trustee Lori McCue suggested that at one of the upcoming budget meetings, the board give the factual information, and discuss how, if this proposition is successful, the members would be dwindles down from nine to seven.

Group files petition, board size reduction up for vote next year

Armand D’Accordo, a member of the United Taxpayers of Northport-East Northport who presented the petition, speaks at a meeting last week. Photo by Victoria Espinoza

Next year, Northport-East Northport school district voters will weigh in on whether to downsize its school board from nine trustees to seven.

On Monday, June 15, the United Taxpayers of Northport-East Northport presented a petition at a school board meeting with nearly 300 signatures in support of the reduction. Beth Nystrom, the district clerk of the Northport-East Northport school district, confirmed in a phone interview that the petition is legitimate and a proposition to downsize the board should be up for a vote in next year’s election.

Armand D’Accordo, a member of the United Taxpayers of Northport-East Northport who presented the petition, said he’s seen a number of issues with the current size of the nine-member board and the length of time board members are in office.

“I have gotten the sense at board meetings, both through watching and interacting, that it seems a bit dysfunctional, due to the makeup of how many members and how long they’ve been around,” D’Accordo said.

Nine members is the largest number permitted on a school board, and three the fewest, according to New York State education law.

“If such a petition is brought forward to the district it will be included in the annual budget vote and decided by the community,” board President Julia Binger said in a statement.

D’Accordo said the group got interested in pursuing this issue after Nina Dorata’s research in “School District Boards, Audit Committees, and Budget Oversight: Seeking a Formula for Good Governance,” published in the March 2013 issue of the CPA Journal, exposed the correlation between school district budget increases and tenure of board members.

In the article, Dorata surveyed Long Island school districts, and 83 percent responded that the average number of members on a school board is approximately six, with the average tenure of five and a half years.

In Northport-East Northport, with the exception of outgoing Trustee Stephen Waldenburg, Jr., who has served for 15 years on the board, all other members each tout tenures of five years or fewer.

The members of the United Taxpayers of Northport-East Northport believe that “statistical and anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that school districts operate in a more effective and efficient manner when the composition of the board is limited to no more than seven board members.”

Dorata is a member of the United Taxpayers of Northport-East Northport and a previous member of the school board’s audit committee, along with D’Accordo. She is a professor at St. Johns University, as well as the assistant chairperson of the school’s department of accounting and taxation.

She discovered in her data that “the bigger the board, the bigger the budget,” and that “after years of reading corporate literature, I found that the entrenchment theory was due to longevity.”

Objectivity becomes lost with board members who have been on the board for many years, Dorata said.

But that’s not a view with which some school board members agree. Waldenburg said he believes the opposite —  the longer a board member stays on the board, the better the budget is. He said the knowledge he has gained over the years is more beneficial to the community. In his 15 years, the budget is much better now then when he started, he said.

“I don’t know why it’s necessary, I think that there is a good symmetry on the board with nine members, there is an even amount up for re-election every year,” he said.

Waldenburg also believes that a smaller board would be less representational, and that with a larger board, there’s room for more diversity in opinions. “It always leads to a better decision.”

Recently re-elected Trustee David Badanes echoed those sentiments. Badanes is currently not in favor of a reduction to the size of the board, “the statistics are speculative and so far the arguments do not convince me,” he said in a statement.

“We have a large and diverse community, with a lot of different areas to represent. The more people that participate gives you more eyes for each issue,” he said.

If the school board fails to give notice at the annual board meeting that a proposition vote on this matter will take place, then the notice will be given by Mary Ellen Elia, the education commissioner of New York.

D’Accordo believes that the public will be in favor of the reduction.

“I do feel confident, in the public there is a general sense I have been getting while collecting signatures for this petition that the public wants a smaller school board.”