Wantagh School District In ‘Moderate Fiscal Stress’: DiNapoli

WANTAGH, NY — The Wantagh School District was one of 31 school districts that was designated in fiscal stress by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli on Tuesday.

Wantagh scored 46.7, meaning that it is “moderately fiscally stressed” under DiNapoli’s Fiscal Stress Monitoring System for the school year ending on June 30, 2020. The report is based on the required financial information that was filed with the state for the 2019-20 school year.

“This is a time of unprecedented uncertainty as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt school district operations and finances,” DiNapoli stated in a news release. “I urge school district leaders to closely monitor their financial conditions, even if their fiscal stress scores were low in the early days of the crisis.”

In a letter posted to the districts website Tuesday School Superintendent John McNamara noted the district improved from the previous year, but not enough to move to a “lower designated category.”

The district enacted a targeted financial plan that “significantly reduced the appropriated fund balance over time” following an audit in 2014-2016, McNamara said. The district had a “minimal” tax increase to the levy in the 2015-16 budget, a decrease in the tax levy in the 2016-17 budget, and the district has continued to be “strategic” in its financial planning, he said.

McNamara said that an important part of the district’s five-year strategic plan, “Building Our Future Together,” navigates significant challenges, including the fiscal restraints of the property tax cap, rising labor costs and aging infrastructure, which are all compounded by the increased expenses “that we face this year to protect our students and staff during the pandemic.”

DiNapoli found that high-need urban/suburban districts showed the highest rate of fiscal stress, with 22.2 percent of the districts in the category designated in some level of stress. Common issues in school districts designated in fiscal stress included a weak cash flow, new or increased reliance on short-term cash flow debt, as well as operating deficits and low fund balances.

Environmental risk factors that DiNapoli studied included districts having a high percentage of economically disadvantaged students and English language learners, large class sizes, a high rate of teacher turnover in district schools, decreased property values and low budget approval rates.

DiNapoli said that environmental stressors are likely to have a financial impact during a recession, such as the one that began in 2020. He explained that the state has withheld 20 percent from certain state aid payments, amounting to at least $300 million across the state. The state Division of the Budget, according to DiNapoli, indicated in January that most of the funds withheld are expected to be paid in the current fiscal year. The possibility of additional federal aid may also mitigate some risk of stress in the near term, he said.

Other Long Island school districts designated under stress included Hempstead and Elmont in Nassau County, and Wyandanch, Newfield, New Suffolk, and Mattituck-Cutchogue in Suffolk County. Western New York was the only region in the state that did not have any school districts designated fstressed.

Need To Know:

• View school districts in stress: School Districts In Stress Fiscal Year Ending 2020
• View a list of school district stress scores, visit Fiscal Stress Monitoring Search Tool
• Read the report: Fiscal Stress Monitoring System School Districts: School year 2019-20 Results; 2020-21 risks