Rockville Centre School District Facing "Difficult Choices" In 26-27 Budget, Superintendent Says

ROCKVILLE CENTRE, NY. — The Rockville Centre School District is going to face some difficult choices in its upcoming budgeting process that will include staff reductions and changes to the way the district delivers its programs to students, superintendent Matthew Gaven said at the Jan. 15 Board of Education meeting.

Gaven’s budget discussion came during the Superintendent’s report portion of the meeting. The superintendent explained that several financial factors will make the next yearly budget difficult to balance.

“I stress that this budget will require difficult choices, which will include staffing reductions that will impact our programs and the way we deliver them,” Gaven said. “As we go through the process, I want to make clear that, even with these difficult choices, we are confident we can maintain the high standard of academic excellence and programmatic variety that is emblematic of the Rockville Centre school district.”

As for where those financial hardships are coming from, Gaven said the district’s expenses are rising faster than its revenue, particularly in three areas.

“First, our contractual obligations will present a level of challenge. Second, our insurance costs continue to rise at unsustainable rates,” Gaven said. “And, third, our special education costs have been escalating for a variety of factors. Historically, in our district, we were able to collect tuition from students that were from other districts…that revenue has been declining over the past three years.”

The 2025-26 budget includes $18,967,500 for health and dental insurance, up from $18,443,000 the year before. That $524,500 increase made up the lion’s share of the increase in total employee benefits from 2024-25 to 2025-26, which rose by $911,600 year-over-year. That increase in insurance costs happened despite total staff line in the budget decreasing by $225,236 — down from 1,081,136 to 855,900 — according to the published budget.

While the costs of doing business for the district are rising, Gaven said, the district is also limited in its ability to raise funds to meet those costs.

“We currently live in a tax cap world, which means our tax levy can only grow by approximately 2 percent each year. State aid is becoming more uncertain, as is federal aid. Compounding that, our district’s property wealth has been increasing at the same time as our enrollment has been decreasing,” Gaven said. “This is not because students are choosing to go elsewhere, this is because there are less students in our district. Currently, four of the five elementary schools are at their lowest enrollment that they’ve been at for the last ten years. Our high school and middle school next year will also see reductions in enrollment. This is combined with the fact that our property values continue to escalate. This has nothing to do with the amount of kids that moved in, this has to do with, generally, the cost on Long Island, of real estate, has gone up, particularly here in Nassau County.”

Gaven also acknowledged that the district is not taking on these monetary challenges alone, citing state aid that the district received last year. Last year’s budget, Gaven noted, included the reduction of two administrator positions, the retirement of multiple employees without replacement, and the use of grant funding to balance the books.

“Last year the state provided a minimum 2 percent increase in foundation aid. We are hopeful this will happen again, but even if it does, it will still only mean about a total increase of about 2 percent in revenue source,” Gaven said. “We have also been seeing decreases in other revenue areas, including less tuition from out of district students, and lower interest rates as interest rates decline. Altogether, we are projecting a less than 2 percent increase in total revenue, while our expenses continue to rise at a faster rate.

All of those factors, Gaven said, combined to create the budgeting environment where difficult choices are on the table.

“We will need to look at the programs we offer and the way we deliver them in order to make revenue and expenses meet, in order to provide a budget,” Gaven said. “The budget will be constructed with the input of our board of education, our administrative team, staff members and our community. We will begin this process in public at our next board meeting, at the end of the month, where we’ll begin to discuss the tax cap.”