Long Beach School Board Adopts $162M Budget Proposal

LONG BEACH, NY — The Long Beach Board of Education adopted its 2026-27 budget proposal Tuesday night, passing a nearly $162.5 million operating budget through another round of review before it goes to voters next month. That budget is $3.4 million higher than the budget for 2025-26, a 2.16 percent increase.

In a presentation to the board, Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Michael DeVito said the largest revenue category for the district is its tax levy; DeVito said the district is asking the community to pay about $114 million for the upcoming school year. That levy request constitutes a 2.2 percent increase in tax levy from last year, which DeVito said comes in under the state-mandated tax increase cap. Under state calculations, the maximum tax increase Long Beach Public Schools could levy would be 2.65 percent.

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Next, there’s state aid, which is still pending the results of state budget negotiations in Albany. Currently, the board is projecting just shy of $28 million based on estimations from the state. The lion’s share of the state aid is classified as foundation aid, which DeVito said he expected to top out at a 2 percent increase. While it could conceivably go above 2 percent, he said that possibility isn’t one he’s expecting.

“That would truly be a surprise, if it goes up more than we expect,” DeVito told the board, when asked about State aid. “In January, when we got the proposal, the governor said she was going to put a 1 percent increase in foundation aid…The information we’ve received, since January, says it’s likely going to be a 2 percent increase. I doubt it’s going to be any more than that.”

DeVito said the school district does have some time to set the tax levy, giving the district some wiggle room in the event that the state aid does come in higher than anticipated.

Finally, there’s miscellaneous income like tuition for out-of-district students and interest accrued by district accounts. That miscellaneous figure, plus PILOT agreements being paid to the school and the fund balance, add up to form the operating budget.

Also on the mind of board members Tuesday was electric vehicles, an issue that has featured in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s agenda for multiple years but has seen its rollout stalled locally. In the fall, one board of education member from elsewhere in Nassau County said they expected electric vehicle rollout in the state to “collapse under its own weight” during a meeting. As for Long Beach, DeVito said the district is on the verge of purchasing a smaller electric vehicle.

“We’re moving slowly, we’re in the process of purchasing a small electric vehicle that we can use to transport one to two students that wouldn’t require a big change in our infrastructure. At the same time, we have a group working with us, grant funded, to create an electrification study that we would present to the state to discuss some of the challenges of living on a barrier island, and where we might put a charging station that would be equipped to charge several buses — whether it’s five, 10, 15 — as we scale it up.”

DeVito said electric bus adoption has been a challenge for the district, not only in procurement of the buses themselves but in terms of charging infrastructure. The bus prices, he said, are relatively high without much grant funding available to offset costs.

“We’re working on it, it’s something we’re involved in, but I’d say it’s slow progress,” DeVito said. “We have our compressed natural gas buses, which are already very green, so, to make a change from a [compressed natural gas] bus to an electric bus isn’t going to make a big difference in carbon footprint, because we already have a very green fleet.”

DeVito said he would be meeting with community groups over the upcoming week to further discuss the presented budget.