The Montauk School District is proposing a $21.03 million spending plan for the 2022-23 school year, once again staying well below the state limit on tax-levy increases.
School officials are planning to offset a number of rising costs with downward adjustments in other areas of the budget, keeping the total spending increase to $441,187 — a year-over-year increase of 2.14 percent.
The proposed tax-levy increase is 1.72 percent. According to state rules, Montauk could have gone as high as 3.98 percent. That differs from the buzz-phrase that people are used to hearing — the “2-percent tax cap” — because of factors such as real estate development and debt payments that are specific to each school district in the state.
Matthew Neuschwender, the district treasurer, said this week that Montauk’s budget will benefit from an increase in state and federal money plus a new kind of state grant called “transportation aid,” because it is operating its own fleet of school buses for the first time this year.
“There’s no reason to think we can’t stay on the current trajectory that we’re on now,” he said, when asked about financial sustainability.
Speaking of school buses, $240,000 has been designated to replace two aging buses, one model from 2000 and another from 2001. Montauk also expects to spend $140,000 more on technology, up to $350,000, through its contracts with BOCES for new smartboards, accounting software, and WiFi upgrades.
Among the primary factors that drive the budget up is tuition to East Hampton High School, which is expected to rise by $251,205, to $4.13 million. Not only is the tuition rate rising, as outlined by the feeder districts’ tuition contract, but Montauk anticipates sending many more of its eighth-graders to East Hampton. Twelve seniors are expected to graduate this year, while the rising freshman class could total as many as 41.
“Not everyone is going to go to East Hampton, but you never know,” Mr. Neuschwender said.
Spending on classroom supplies will rise slightly in most subject areas and grade levels, except for music, foreign languages, technology, and physical education. There is also, for the first time, a budget line for Montauk’s gifted-and-talented program; that amount is $3,175.
Both general education and special education teachers are due contractual pay raises, with projected increases of $99,394, up to $3.9 million, for the general program, and $95,588, up to $910,362, for special education.
In an email on Monday, Jack Perna, Montauk’s superintendent and principal, called the budget plan “reasonable.” As the 2022-23 school year progresses, he said, “part of what we are looking to purchase will come out of the American Rescue Plan grants, so we should be in very good shape.”
The school board’s next step is to adopt the proposed budget and put it on the May ballot for voter approval. There will be a public hearing on the budget on May 10, a Tuesday, at 6 p.m. The vote, and the election of school board members, is May 17, from 2 to 6 p.m.
In other Montauk School news, the district has embarked on an overhaul of its portable classrooms to convert them into a permanent structure, a project that has been about seven years in development.
During a March 15 school board meeting, which featured an update by John Tanzi, the district’s architect, it was announced that construction may begin as early as June if all goes well. The renovation plans were submitted to the State Education Department for approval last fall. “The conversation with the state is still ongoing,” said Mr. Neuschwender.
The project calls for four permanent classrooms, with a basement and a new corridor to connect them to the rest of the school. “Most of the structure will be built off-site, delivered, and then secured on-site,” Mr. Neuschwender said.
The district has the money, some $2.4 million, already set aside, in the form of transfers to its capital fund from prior years’ budgets, so the project is not expected to increase taxes.