Superintendent, First-Time Board Member React to Budget Vote and Elections

and elected two new candidates to the Board of Education. Less than 24 hours after polls closed, Superintendent Edward Ehmann and new board member Grace Plourde addressed the community’s adoption of the budget, the changing of board members and the controversial bus referendum.

Ehmann said he is pleased that the budget was adopted and that this budget will allow programs to be preserved in the future.

“I’m very pleased to see the community is supporting the budget, as we’ve said in our presentations [this] is a budget that allows us to not only maintain most of our programming in the present but it also gives the ability to plan for the future,” he said.

Grace Plourde, who was elected to the board Tuesday, agreed and added that the adopting this budget would have been better than the alternative.

“I’m very happy that the budget was adopted by the public, I think that it’s a tribute to the excellent job that the current board and the district did in educating the public,” Plourde said. “The fact that the budget which was adopted was better, and represented a smaller tax levy increase than would a contingent budget – everybody was properly educated, everybody understood.”

Plourde was one of two first-time candidates elected to the board. Current president of the board Robert Rossi was defeated by Plourde 3,307 votes to 3,045.

Upon hearing the news of being elected, Plourde said she was grateful for the opportunity to serve on the board.

“I’m very grateful to the trust that the Smithtown parents and the Smithtown taxpayers have put on me, I really just hope that I’ll be able to add to and collectively represent everybody’s interests,” she said.

Although Plourde won’t be sworn in until July, she said her job and her responsibility to the school district begins now.

“I have to start now by going back to the people who elected me and asking them, ‘what are your thoughts?’ We’re about to pick up the search for a new superintendent, ‘what are the most important qualities to you?’ Now we’re going to deal with the fallout from the transportation referendum, talk to me. ‘What kind of solutions do you think are going to work?,’” she said.

The bus referendum, which will increase distances for children to get bus service to school, was passed Tuesday 3,915 votes to 3,055. Plourde said with that interaction with the community is necessary to solve any potential problems.

“I think that [bus referendum] was a really, really tough choice for our voters … nobody wants to put children at risk but again I understand the financial pressure that probably caused people to vote one way or the other,” she said. “We have a responsibility as a community to make sure that our kids who are now walkers are able to walk to their schools safely.”

Ehmann said the bus referendum passing is a testament to the community’s willingness to save programs in tough economic times.

“We put it out to the community for a vote and the community has obviously felt that any economy that we can achieve to keep our program in tact is something that they’re willing to do,” he said.