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Three Village school board meeting

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Ward Melville High School. File photo

Debate over arming school security guards continues

By Mallie Jane Kim

School building maintenance and improvement projects warrant considering a bond in Three Village Central School District, according to district officials.

A bond, which would need voter approval, would allow the district to borrow money over a 15-year term to address needs such as repairing the cupolas that top the aging brick buildings, updating science labs and adding air conditioning to elementary school cafeterias.

The annual increase in cost to the average taxpayer would be about $284, according to an estimate by interim Deputy Superintendent Jeffrey Carlson.

New York State building aid currently reimburses 66% of the cost and interest involved in building projects in Three Village, money that would be paid out over that same 15-year term as the loan.

“If we’re in agreement that work needs to be done, a bond is the fairest way for taxpayers to pay for it,” Carlson said at a Dec. 11 school board meeting. “No matter how you look at it, it’s a great deal that somebody else is paying two thirds of the cost of any of the projects that we have to do.”

The 66% reimbursement rate is high for a wealthier district like Three Village, due to a quirk in the building aid formula that states a district will get either the result of a wealth-calculation formula or the percentage it got the previous year, whichever is higher. 

After Gov. Kathy Hochul’s attempts last year to cut state aid to many school districts, including about $8 million from Three Village, school officials wonder if the building aid formula may also face future adjustments. If so, Three Village building aid from the state could drop to 37.6% based on current wealth levels, according to Carlson, who added that voting to secure a bond would lock in the current aid rate. Any actual work would likely begin summer of 2026.

“Issuing a bond now should secure, in principle, this favorable reimbursement throughout the term of the bond,” said Tracy Harris, reading from a statement by a bond committee made up of parents, community members and stakeholders from district employee groups.

The committee visited each building for a firsthand review of projects that would fall under the bond and, after almost a year of discussions, unanimously recommended the board approve a referendum at the “earliest reasonable date.”

The committee also recommended a tiered approach with multiple propositions, separating out greater needs in one proposition and lower-priority needs in another, contingent on voters adopting the first proposition. 

“This tiered approach empowers the community to support the level of investment they deem appropriate while maximizing the likelihood that critical projects are funded,” read Harris.

But Carlson cautioned the tiers could imply projects in a secondary proposition are not important. He said air conditioning in elementary school cafeterias and junior high school gyms may sound superfluous, except for a new state law requiring schools vacate rooms that reach 88 degrees Fahrenheit. Hot June or September days could render those spaces unusable. 

“Air conditioning is not quite the luxury that it used to be,” Carlson said.

If the school board decides to approve a referendum at its January 8 meeting, residents could potentially vote on the bond in March, before the district begins its 2025-2026 budget planning. 

Parents speak out against arming security guards

Debate among district parents about whether to arm school security guards continues to percolate after a student accidentally brought a parent’s loaded law enforcement weapon into a classroom at Ward Melville High School on Oct. 10. 

District officials have said they are reviewing and updating security protocol, including working to acquire an AI weapons detection system. A newly formed parent group has called publicly over the past months for metal detectors and armed security guards, but now others are speaking against such measures.

“Actively bringing firearms to the school campus, regardless of whose hands they are in, is not the answer,” argued parent Ian Farber during the board meeting’s public comment section. “It’s incumbent on all of us to bolster effective security measures, not succumb to fears. For if we live in fear, we lose.”

One major concern was whether students with anxiety, ADHD or autism may, in a moment of crisis, inadvertently appear to be a threat to an armed security guard unfamiliar with how to appropriately deescalate such situations.

Others said armed guards and metal detectors offer a “false sense of security” and pointed to a 2021 academic study published on the JAMA network that found school shootings where armed guards were present had a 2.83% greater rate of deaths.

“There are more effective things that we can do before we go to the knee-jerk reaction of putting in metal detectors and armed guards,” said district parent Nadia Busseuil, who suggested preventative measures like addressing bullying and making sure kids are connected to caring adults like teachers, guidance counselors and psychologists.

To those who prefer arming guards, the option is not knee-jerk but a long time coming. 

Three Village parent Alex Dicpinigaitis said district solutions like AI weapons detection are a waste of time.

“At the end of that project, we’ll still have the same situation but with a bigger tax bill: We’ll still have a bad guy with a gun and no good guy with a gun to stop him,” said Dicpinigaitis, whose Facebook group 3v Parents for Armed Security has over 200 members. “For a significantly lower price, we can arm our guards today.”

Groups on both sides of this issue are circulating petitions to present to the Board of Education. 

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Ward Melville High School. File photo

By Mallie Jane Kim

Three Village Central School District will see at least 67 retirements across instructional and noninstructional staff this year, according to Deputy Superintendent Jeffrey Carlson. Those retirements, along with a restructuring of district administration, will allow Three Village to cut about 15 full-time positions through attrition and save an estimated $2.9 million. 

Carlson explained at an April 3 school board meeting that staff adjustments will include three additional elementary teachers to help balance class sizes as well as the restoration of an administrative-level director of curriculum and instruction, though he pointed out the number of administrators will stay the same. 

“Because of the retirements, that gives us a chance to look at different positions, and maybe there would be a different structure that would fit us better,” Carlson said.

The staff adjustments are part of budget plans to stay within this year’s 2.84% tax levy increase cap for the district, against the background of uncertainty in the state budget negotiations in Albany. New York’s budget dictates how much state funding goes to each district, and though it was supposed to land April 1, the process is still ongoing.

Carlson maintained his optimism that the $9 million in cuts to the district proposed by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget plan in January would not come to fruition, yet indicated the district administration has planned the 2024-25 school year budget with caution. 

“We feel we’ve put a solid budget together,” Carlson told the board. “If we do wind up with a reduction in aid, then we will be prepared to make the recommendation for what gets cut.”

The district is proceeding with its budget planning as though state funding will come through. According to Carlson, that makes more sense than planning for hypothetical state aid cuts since what voters will choose whether to adopt on May 21 is a maximum budget amount.

“It doesn’t mean we have to spend that much money — it just means we can’t spend more than that,” he said.

Two board members push for advanced planning, taxpayer relief

Trustee Karen Roughley again pushed administrators for more advanced planning, suggesting a sort of vision board to help steer Three Village toward its goals, and account for probable mandates coming down the pike from New York State, like potential financial literacy requirements for graduation. 

“If I had some sort of plan to say, ‘In the next one to two to three years, we want to increase the business department by three teachers because we want to add XYZ courses,’” she said, posing a hypothetical example. “Then we could see as we’re working through the budget with you guys that, ‘OK, maybe this is the year to add one of those in, and then next year maybe we can add the two more in.’”

Her colleague David McKinnon went further, suggesting the district halt any budget growth for 2024-25 over the current $230.9 million budget. 

“I’m afraid it’s really now or never for local tax relief,” McKinnon said, pointing to this year’s state aid uncertainty and the likelihood that changes to future state aid would probably mean less money over time flowing from the state to the district, due to lower enrollment.

He added that though enrollment has been declining for more than a decade, residents have not seen any decline in their taxes. “Taxpayers have not had very effective representation in the budget process,” he said, indicating that’s why he ran for the board in the first place. “The result is obviously some pent-up frustration with the budgets.”

Superintendent of Schools Kevin Scanlon pointed out enrollment has leveled in the lower grades, indicating a move toward stabilization in student numbers. He added that the cost of educating students has gone up, and many of those rising costs are due to inflation or otherwise out of the administration’s control, like employee contracts, which are negotiated by the school board in conjunction with the relevant unions.

“Going from the 2.84% in tax levy [increase] now to a zero would definitely have a tremendous impact on our budget,” he said, suggesting class sizes would soar and the district would have to cut programs and close an elementary school by September. “While the taxpayers would have the relief, the students would suffer in my opinion in many ways.”

Board member Jeffrey Kerman took issue with the suggestion of further cuts, and with McKinnon’s assertion he is on the board to negotiate for taxpayers.

“We all represent the taxpayers — we also represent the students,” Kerman told McKinnon. “We try to negotiate with our unions and everything else, but we’re here for the students — to make sure our district remains the district that it is now, a wonderful district.”

The board is scheduled to adopt a budget at an April 17 meeting, and the budget will face voters on May 21.

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Ward Melville High School. File photo

By Mallie Jane Kim

After weeks of advocacy, Three Village Central School District is planning its budget as though proposed drastic cuts in state funding won’t happen. 

Administration officials expressed optimism during a preliminary budget discussion at a March 6 Board of Education meeting, stating they plan to create the 2024-25 school year budget based roughly on current state aid numbers, as opposed to incorporating the nearly $9 million in cuts the district would receive under Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) state budget proposal. 

“I’m fairly confident we’re going to get [funding] restored,” said Superintendent of Schools Kevin Scanlon while sharing that he had just returned from a few days lobbying in Albany. “Whether or not we get an increase, that stands to be seen. Until we receive confirmation of that, I think we should proceed cautiously.”

Deputy Superintendent Jeffrey Carlson agreed, adding, “That does not mean we don’t plan for that kind of thing going forward, whether it be next year, the year after, the year after that.” 

Part of Hochul’s rationale in presenting the budget was realigning state school funding to reflect declining enrollment in certain districts. Affected districts pointed to extreme inflation in recent years, and also said it would be an overwhelming burden to force school districts to absorb in one year cuts based on a decade’s worth of enrollment decline.

Freshmen board members Karen Roughley and David McKinnon, who ran for the board in part to push for more advanced budget planning, both encouraged the district to consider options to fundamentally make district spending more sustainable, such as repurposing a school.

“Infrastructure costs money,” McKinnon said, explaining that district costs are rising faster than its income. “It’s one of the first things businesses do — we’re going to have to cut down on how much infrastructure we’re trying to maintain. There’s no way around that.”

Roughley agreed. “We need to make sure that we are preparing for things to be reduced every single year, because it’s going to happen,” she said. 

Administration officials previously estimated the cost savings of $1.1 million for repurposing one of the district’s five elementary schools, but during the public comment section of the board meeting, resident Carmine Inserra questioned that figure. “I feel it’s probably more than that if you include the benefit of combining programs at less schools, which offers efficiencies at dividing students among teachers, rooms and transportation,” said Inserra, who leads the Residents for Responsible Spending group in the district. “It’s far more savings than just turning down the heat.”

Inserra also called out the district administration and board for “ignoring” declining enrollment for years and for neglecting to give enough information and authority to its Budget Advisory Committee, a group of stakeholders that advises the board on the budget plan. 

“The BAC meetings have turned into sales presentations from the district admins on what their departments do and the successes they’ve had,” said Inserra, who served on the BAC a few years ago and said he watches the meetings even though he was not selected this year. “Have you given them any projected expenses and income for the coming years? Have you explained to them how expenses are affected by contractual [teacher] salary and benefit increases?”

For his part, Carlson defended the BAC presentations, saying he felt the committee would be more equipped to make good recommendations if they understand where the money is going, rather than looking at a line item on a page. 

Scanlon noted that much of the district’s rising costs are out of the administration’s control, such as increases in transportation contract costs and unfunded mandates from the state, like the one to switch to electric school buses by 2035. But the district is still watching for ways to be more cost-effective, he said, and pointed to one expected area of savings — teacher retirements. More than half the district’s teachers are “very senior” with about 26 years of experience, according to Scanlon, who anticipates 117 teacher retirements over the next four years. 

“That is a significant brain drain to our community,” he said. “We’re going to lose a lot of highly-qualified teachers, but at the same time it’s going to be a cost savings.”

Carlson, who heads up the budget planning process and presented the preliminary 2024-25 budget, said that the district can make reductions in next year’s plan as needed once real state aid numbers come in, to stay within the district’s tax cap. 

The state’s budget is due by April 1, though last year it didn’t land until May. That timing makes it hard for school districts, which need to have budgets ready for public review between April 30 and May 7. In Three Village school district’s timeline, that means the board needs to adopt its budget at the April 3 meeting. 

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