Rockville Centre School Budget: What You Need To Know

Rockville Centre residents will cast their ballots for the 2019-20 school budget on Tuesday, May 21, and here's what you need to know.

The total proposed budget is increasing by just under $3 million, to $120,135,899. That's a 2.5 percent increase over the current spending plan. To finance the budget, the district is proposing a roughly $2.5 million increase in the tax levy, bringing that total to $97,780,000.

There are some big changes between this year's budget and the 2019-20 proposal. Looking at budget documents, it may seem like the district is spending and cutting all over. But new state guidelines have changed how the district has to write out its budget, so some items have been moved around.

The biggest increase, though, is coming in salaries. Salaries are increasing in the district by more than $1.7 million. In addition, the health insurance costs the district is paying are also going up by $700,000.

Those costs, along with other contractual obligations the district has to pay, make up the bulk of the budget increase.

The district is also receiving less state aid than it anticipated, officials said. It's up less than $40,000 from the current year.

For more information on the district's budget, click here. Residents can vote on the budget, as well as the library budget and candidates for the Board of Education and Library Board, on Tuesday, May 21 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. at South Side High School.