School Board Approves $215M Budget, Tax Levy Increase of 2.23 Percent

Smithtown's adopted the proposed budget for the 2012-13 school year Tuesday night, which calls for a $215.3 million in spending and a 2.23 percent tax levy increase over the previous year's budget.

The vote passed with six votes in favor of the budget and one vote in opposition. The lone opposing vote came from board member Joseph Saggese. 

"We worked on the budget process for the past several months, got some concessions from the unions and everything else was in line," said board member Louis Liguori of his vote in favor of the budget. "We had a very busy year with [and] they trimmed the budget without really cutting any programs."

Saggese said the detailed budget was released with limited time to review it before the board was set to vote.

"I didn't get a chance to review the budget because it's coming out so late. The line item detailed budget was just put on the website yesterday [Monday]. I haven't got answers to many questions, I don't know what I'm voting on," he said.

Liguori said he thinks the community will approve the proposed budget.

"I think the two-percent tax cap structure that was imposed by the government, by the state, has given some assurances that the district and the community is going to work within those confines."

Saggese echoed Liguori's thoughts.

"It's not overly expensive – it's at two percent, it's within the cap," he said. "With the reserves I don't think that they will pick up on the fact that it's costing $5 million more than what they're doing, but I think it will pass."

The proposed budget would use roughly $3.3 million from the and $1.5 million from the Assigned Appropriated Fund Balance to cover hit the $215.3 million budget.