Garden City 2020-21 School Budget Hearing: What To Know

GARDEN CITY, NY — Residents of the Garden City School District will vote by absentee ballot this year on the district's proposed 2020-21 school budget, as well as elect the school board and library trustees.

All registered voters who live in the district's boundaries will receive an absentee ballot in the mail with a postage-paid return envelope, the district said. There will be no in-person voting. Ballots must be received by the district no later than 5 p.m. on June 9.

A virtual budget hearing is scheduled for May 27.

The Garden City School District's proposed spending plan for the 2020-21 school year is $120,913,141. That's a 2.47 percent increase from the current budget.

To fund the increase, the district proposes a tax levy of $104,547,393, up 1.74 percent from the current year's, which the district says is within the tax cap.

This year's vote also includes a ballot measure to allow the district to spend $2,685,000 from the capital reserve fund approved last year to transform spaces in the district. If it's approved, work will include a new library/media center in the middle school and a new science research room in the high school. Approving the measure will not affect taxes or require any additional borrowing, as the money has already been budgeted.

Typically, the Board of Education adopts the budget and it is presented to the community about a month before the annual vote. Gov. Andrew Cuomo changed the voting process this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Cuomo warned that the economic effect of the shutdown imposed to curb the outbreak could mean much less money available for state education aid. The state will be assessing and adjusting its budget several times in the course of 2020. Cuomo's last estimate was that state aid could be 20 percent lower than already promised if the state does not receive federal aid.

This article originally appeared on the Garden City Patch

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