By Stephanie Mariel Petrellese

The projected tax levy increase has been reduced from 2.48 percent to 2.33 percent, announced Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Feirsen at the March 10th Garden City Board of Education work session.

Dr. Feirsen's proposed budget is now $95,215,587, which is .75 percent higher than last year. The projected tax levy increase (with STAR) is 2.48 percent. He emphasized that the budget is still a work in progress. The tax levy increase in particular may change since the amount of state aid the district will receive has yet to be determined. Garden City is expected to see a state aid decrease of nearly nine percent, which would total $465,701, if Gov. David A. Paterson's budget is passed. Federal aid is also uncertain.

Dr. Feirsen explained that a major reason why the district was able to reduce the budget by $125,000, and therefore lower the tax levy to 2.33, was due to a refunding of the district's 1999 construction bonds. The district sought to capitalize on the current low interest rates and was able to save $257,000. Albert Chase, the district's assistant superintendent for business and finance, estimates that over the next nine years the district will save a total of $2.2 million.

In addition, Standard & Poor's increased the district's credit rating from Aa2 to AA+, which is one notch below the highly coveted AAA rating. "A better credit rating, like a person with a better credit score, can borrow money cheaper than a person with a bad credit score," explained Chase. "Therefore, our improved credit rating assisted the district in achieving the level of savings that it did on the refunding. With a lower rating, it was likely that we would have saved a bit less over the long run."

The district also further scrutinized the budget and reduced the amount of money allocated for asset inventory reappraisal, the cost estimate for substitute teachers, and the number of middle and high school intramurals. "School districts are required periodically to have asset inventories appraised for the purpose of presentation in the annual financial statements," explained Chase. "Based on the timing of the last appraisal, we felt that we could push the next one off until the 2010-11 school year, rather than to have it done in 2009-10. This represents a savings in 2009-10 of $11,000."

The intramural cuts are the same as reported last week: Dr. Feirsen and Nancy Kalafus, the district's director of physical education and athletics, have proposed eliminating at the high school winter martial arts, floor hockey and two sessions of volleyball, and at the middle school, they have proposed eliminating a double session of roller hockey and tennis.

Chase said that $50,000 out of the $257,000 was used to reduce the tax rate. The rest of the money has been added to capital projects for completion of the clean-up of the crawl space at the Middle School. Capital projects now total $1.2 million.

As reported in the Feb. 27th edition of The Garden City News, lead was discovered in a room adjacent to the boys' locker room in the Middle School basement that had once been used as a rifle range. All areas have been tested and are no longer considered to be contaminated and the room has been sealed. However, the contaminated sand in that room will need to be removed. Dr. Feirsen said they have been given a "sense" of what the cost might be and therefore have set this money aside.

Jim Averett, first vice president of the Garden City PTA, read a statement offering the PTA's support for this year's budget. "The executive committee of the Garden City PTA applauds the administration and the Board of Education for proposing a 2009-10 school budget with an increase of less than one percent at a time when the economic pain in Garden City is real and in some cases, acute."

A public hearing on the budget will be held on Monday, May 11. Garden City residents will be asked to vote on the budget on Tuesday, May 19.