With a supermajority vote, a $135 million Mamaroneck school budget passed public referendum, continuing a trend of position cuts and overriding the state’s property tax levy cap.
With a margin of 1,634 to 491, the 2017-2018 budget will effectively raise the tax levy by 2.25 percent, marking the first-ever tax override for the district since the adoption of a state-imposed tax levy cap by the state Legislature in 2011.
The cap limit this year for school districts was 1.15 percent and this year’s increase will raise an additional $1.19 million.
According to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Shaps, the levy increase will help allow the district to maintain level of services for its students.
“We needed to ask for an override,” Shaps said. “[Otherwise] we would have had to reduce programs and staffing.”
In addition to raising the tax levy, the budget will also authorize the continuation of staffing cuts, seeing a net loss of 4.5 certified teaching positions. Among the positions being cut are art teachers, special education and music.
In particular, a district redesign of the school’s APPLE program, which stands for A Place People Learn Excellence, and focuses on extra help for students, saw the broadest position cuts. APPLE saw its director cut, in addition to teachers for math, science, and English.
According to Shaps, the students in that program—which were formerly sequestered in smaller class sizes—will return to mainstream classes, but will still be offered extra help in the form of academic liaisons and a full-time psychologist.
The redesign drew the ire of some residents who circulated a petition to “save APPLE” that garnered nearly 800 signatures.
According to Shaps, this budget’s levy increase has been driven in part by consistent increases in enrollment over the past six years—a 9 percent increase in total—with per pupil expenditure remaining static at about $24,000 per student.
Shaps said Mamaroneck’s growth stands as an outlier amongst other districts in Westchester County and classifies the increase as “extreme.”
In relation to enrollment increases—which account for an additional 500 students since 2010—staff size, Shaps said, has remained stagnant.
Among the marquis initiatives included in the 2017-2018 budget, according to Shaps, are a partnership with Yale University to develop an emotional intelligence framework as well as a multi-year civil service program, where students will work on affecting change in their local communities.
Both Board of Education seats that were up for re-election—incumbent Steven Warner and newcomer Samuel Orans—were uncontested. Board members serve three-year terms.
