East Hampton High School’s annual graduation ceremony, revered every year as a beautiful event, is held under a tent that initially cost $19,000 to rent but now costs the district around $50,000.
For each school district employee who enrolls his or her family in the district’s health insurance plan, East Hampton pays more than $40,000 annually in premiums — an increase of around 490 percent over the last five years.
Referees and umpires who officiate at school sports in Suffolk County got a new contract last year calling for pay increases in some areas of up to 12 percent, with the bill to be footed by the individual school districts — like East Hampton — that field the team sports that keep many kids invested in school.
Age-appropriate library books for middle schoolers. Career-skills training for high schoolers. Science equipment and supplies at every grade level. Trained security guards to keep everyone safe. Data protection and cybersecurity. Academic and health resources to help children recover in the wake of a global pandemic.
These are just a few examples of rising costs that are impacting the bottom line in East Hampton. For the first time in a decade, and only the second time in the history of New York State’s cap on tax-levy increases, the district is seeking voter approval on an over-the-tax-cap budget plan for the first time in a decade.
Voters will head to the polls on May 21 to weigh in on an $82.88 million spending plan for the 2024-25 school year. The associated tax-levy increase is 8.71 percent, a little above 5 percent over what the tax cap would have allowed. At least 60 percent of voters must say “yes” for the budget to pass.
Adam Fine, East Hampton’s superintendent, has been widely quoted as saying the 2024-25 school year is not the time to “blow up” the academic offerings with program cuts and staff layoffs, as many districts elsewhere on Long Island are doing, after “what our kids have been through the last four years.”
Out of Their Hands
“We can’t not pay the health insurance bill. We can’t not pay the BOCES bill, the retirement bill,” Sam Schneider, East Hampton’s assistant superintendent for business, said in an interview this week. “If you’re looking for why is this budget going in excess of the tax cap it’s because we have a bunch of non-negotiable items” seeing steep increases.
“Costs are running away faster than we can keep pace because of the limitations of the property tax cap,” he later continued. “While the tax cap has done an excellent job in controlling costs for property owners, it doesn’t factor in that there are certain fixed costs in operating a municipality [like a school district] that rise more quickly than what the property tax cap can accommodate. More and more, we’re going to see situations in the coming years where municipalities are not going to be able to keep pace.”
East Hampton is one of three local districts attempting to override the tax cap this year; the others are Springs and Amagansett, which will be covered in depth in next week’s Star.
A Look at the Numbers
The $82.88 million budget breaks down into three main areas: program, administrative, and capital costs. Programs (including teacher salaries, classroom supplies, textbooks, and more) make up 69.54 percent of the budget; capital costs (repairs and maintenance, security, utilities like gas and electricity) make up 20.73 percent, and administrative costs (salaries for the superintendent and principals, employee training, BOCES expenses) make up the remaining 9.73 percent.
“We do a lot more than a normal school system here,” Mr. Fine said, referring to initiatives such as the community mental health organization he helped to establish several years ago. “Our administrative costs? They are so minimal in this district in the scheme of the whole big picture here.”
Salaries need to be competitive and health insurance must be offered, Mr. Fine said, to be able to retain top-notch teachers, counselors, and support staff in a region where the cost of living is so high.
About the tax impact: The district is estimating that for a house with an assessed value of $6,000, equating to around $1 million in market value, the tax increase would be around $305 for the year. But there’s a big, big asterisk to that projection, because that may not represent the actual average real estate values here, and because East Hampton Town’s total assessment of its property tax rolls isn’t up to date just yet. The numbers could, and likely will, change.
“The budget is an aspirational document,” Mr. Schneider said. “We can only use the facts that we have before us at the time we write the budget.”
The Consequences of “No”
If voters reject the budget on May 21, East Hampton will have another shot with a revote in June. It could choose to adjust the budget plan downward, or take a chance and put the same budget up for another vote. If it fails a second time, the district would automatically be plunged into an austerity situation mandating zero increase to the tax levy.
That means at least $5 million in budget cuts to areas that would really hurt the kids, Mr. Fine said. Think of an East Hampton without sports programs and clubs. There would have to be widespread teacher layoffs, resulting in larger class sizes in the elementary and middle schools and fewer electives at the high school.
In Their Own Words
What are voters thinking? Until the budget vote results are in, it’s hard to tell in any statistically significant way.
One voter, Meaghan Guzman, who has three children now attending East Hampton schools, is planning to enthusiastically say “yes.”
“There is just no way to say ‘no.’ I don’t want opportunities for our children to be lost,” she said in an interview. “It’s so worth it. We’re raising these children to be adults very soon, and they need to have that education, and the extracurriculars, and resources to learn and stay healthy. All of that is so important.”
Paul Fiondella, a longtime resident who has been vocal lately about the town’s proposed senior citizens center, is undecided on the school budget but said he may ultimately abstain from voting. He said he wants the district to provide data on the success of its students long term, to justify the spending increases year after year.
“Frankly I think everyone in East Hampton is willing to pay increased school taxes if we get results. That’s the problem. There seems to be a mismatch between the results and what we pay,” he said. “I would like to see them giving us the assurance that we are producing students who succeed. Any school can point to one or two students who go to a good university . . . but it’s not being addressed in a way that gives me confidence.”
Both Mr. Fiondella and Ms. Guzman said the district needs to step up its communication with residents in all demographics, and both parents and non-parents alike.
“We’re not looking for controversy here, we’re looking for progress. It’s not easy to do that when there isn’t communication as an ongoing thing,” Mr. Fiondella said. “The administrators are very devoted to the school but you have to have more communication with the public and it can’t just be at budget time.”
Ms. Guzman learned about the budget through her participation in P.T.A. groups, but “I feel like it’s not put out there enough as to what the consequences are if this does not pass.”
But Mr. Fine hasn’t heard a lot from community members yet, which worries him. “My greatest concern in lieu of not hearing things is apathy — people thinking they don’t have to come out,” he said.
He did make a pledge to do everything in his power and in the district’s power to not have a repeat of this tax-cap situation the year after next.
“If this budget passes, we’ll bring it back to the board of education and we’ll have to look at where we can maintain savings going forward to not pierce the cap the following year. That’s my goal. I’m not looking to propose that the following year.”