Things are looking up for the Wainscott School District, which at this time last year was confronting a budget deficit of close to $1 million and floating an over-the-tax-cap spending plan for the 2023-24 school year.
David Eagan, the school board president, said during a school board meeting on Tuesday that the district will most likely not need to pierce the state-mandated cap for 2024-25. The decision leans on one key factor: keeping the fourth grade in-house for another year, rather than returning to the earlier kindergarten-through-third-grade structure.
“If we don’t do it, then we can’t stay within the tax cap,” he said, adding that piercing the cap is “the last thing I want to do.”
This time around, Mr. Eagan and other Wainscott School officials said, the district will go further in its efforts to provide fourth graders with opportunities that mirror what their peers receive in neighboring districts. These would include lessons on musical instruments and intramural sports — even if it means spending more money busing kids to those lessons or other programs off campus.
“Let’s get an idea of what they have that we don’t have,” Mr. Eagan said.
“We’ll do more outreach to East Hampton, Sag Harbor, and Bridgehampton to make it a better fourth-grade experience,” added Deborah Haab, Wainscott’s superintendent.
The tiny district, with about 25 students in its own schoolhouse and 69 students in the fifth through 12th grades at schools in East Hampton, Bridgehampton, and Sag Harbor, is also planning to bring back prekindergarten by launching an in-house program. That will involve an up-front cost of about $6,000 in classroom supplies and about $35,000 to $40,000 more for a teacher’s salary and benefits; still, it will save the district money in the long run, officials said, as an in-house prekindergarten would mean the district would not have to pay tuition to send its youngest children elsewhere.
“I found it deeply embarrassing to tell parents that we couldn’t pay for prekindergarten for their children” this year, Mr. Eagan said.
Also benefiting Wainscott is the fact that its enrollment has stabilized. Last year, there was an unexpected jump in new-student registrations, of at least 20 children, leading to overbudget spending on middle and high school tuition and unexpected special education costs.
Another sign that things have stabilized is that the district is expecting to have nearly $500,000 in unspent money at the close of the fiscal year on June 30. This type of surplus — which Wainscott had spent down in the past at the direction of the Office of the New York State Comptroller — could provide a cushion for future unplanned costs, such as midyear enrollment increases or special education services.
There may be a one-time capital expense to include in the budget: Ms. Haab is seeking price quotes to upgrade the schoolhouse’s heating system. Also, Wainscott will again need to borrow money to operate until tax money begins flowing in; it did that for the first time this year.
For next year’s budget, the district is looking at a year-over-year spending increase of just .6 percent and at most a 2.58-percent tax-levy increase, which is greater than the “2-percent” number that people are used to hearing because of factors specific to Wainscott, such as real estate development within district borders. The preliminary number discussed this week is $4,873,608, but the district still has several weeks to finalize its budget plan for the May 21 ballot.
“We are so far ahead of where we were last year,” Mr. Eagan said.