‘The 2026-2027 budget is going to be a very lean budget’

“Tonight’s a big night…there is going to be a little bit of a change here tonight because the community spoke loud and clear…the contingent budget is so Draconian and we lose local control…it’s not going to be an easy night. And the next few months are going to be challenging,” said South Country Central school district interim superintendent John Dolan at a special budget meeting on Tuesday, May 26 at Bellport Middle School.

“This was no doubt an unprecedented message sent to the school district, we had a 75 percent no vote,” said Acting Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Management Services, John Belmonte.

The proposed budget up for a vote in June is a $6 million reduction from $150 million to $144 million and lower the proposed tax levy increase from 13.5% to 5.5%.

The average household’s tax bill would increase approximately $222 annual, or from $11 to $25 a month.

According to Acting Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Management Services John Belmonte, the district is looking at reductions “across the board,” including cuts to administration and programming.

The proposed savings would come with significant reductions throughout the district. Officials say the plan would eliminate 34 full-time positions, on top of the 60 positions cut in the first budget, cut late bus services and increase class sizes.

Following the district’s budget vote on May 19 where the proposed 2026-2027 budget was voted down, 1,529 in favor and 2,747 opposed.

Following the fiscal woes of South Country Central District, the Special Act legislation passed by New York state for $11 million in funding with an advance of $7 million brought up the question in the community according to Belmonte of “what are we going to do to ensure that this situation doesn’t happen again?”

Along with the funds, fiscal oversight from the New York state comptroller is in place from the legislation beginning in 2026 through 2055 for quarterly financial reports.

The school district will have to provide line-budget items, comparisons between actual and budgeted revenue, expenditures under estimation every quarter (September, December, March and June) culminating in the submission to the local BOE, NYS division of budget, NYS comptroller, commissioner of education, chair of the assembly ways and means, and finally, the chair of senate finance committee.

“The 7 million on May 18, helped us considerably with allocations [and also] Sale of Bond anticipation notes on May 20 that were dated for one year and the net interest to the district 4.035 percent,” said Belmonte.

Ratings company Standard and Poors met with administration for a number of days and Belmonte was surprised that, “we were only knocked down two notches from a Triple A rating to an A+.”

The credit watch committee at Standard and Poors has 90 days to modify credit rating.

The new budget presented has the unverified calculated cap of 5.52%, which will only require a 50% majority vote from district to pass.

Some of the cuts include: administration ($616,000 which includes reduction in security 530,000), elimination of conference and travel ($25,000), postage ($10,000), reduction of clerical substitution ($35,000), and clerical overtime ($15,000)

“None of decisions are easy…when the community passes a budget, they are passing a plan,” said Belmonte. “As the district goes through the budget year, these cuts are not necessarily written concrete…the district has flexibility to prioritize and change and things that happen on an emergency basis.”

“The program component represents significant and difficult decisions that would materially impact opportunities for students here at South Country…that doesn’t mean we don’t have an opportunity to rebuild down the years,” said Belmonte.

The program changes include 4.7 million reductions and 34 FTE positions.

This includes: eliminating late busses, eliminating co-curricular intramurals, eliminating the director of guidance, eliminating the director of technology, elimination of junior varsity athletics, reduction of athletic transportation, athletics uniforms, elimination of 4 FTE with math interventionists at the K-5 level, English increased class sizes, math and business combination of classes, reduction of electives, the elimination of Advanced Placement chemistry, physics, and environmental science, college level Spanish and French, removal of technology electives at high school, and removal two elementary counselors.

“None of this is fun and it’s certainly painful,” said Belmonte who added that the contingency budget would require another $4 million in program cuts.

“I can’t imagine taking down another $4 million from this budget, it would be devastating, we would have no programs.”

Jeanette Fabrizio was the first community member to speak during the public portion. The mom of three with one graduate and two still matriculated spoke of the school lunch budget as she is a nutrition manager at another school district. Specifically, that the district look into becoming a self-operational cafeteria under food management as the practice has profited the other school district over $700,000 and could potentially be a revenue source for South Country.

Corinne Odicon, a dad of two was, critical of the school budget letter that was sent out to the South Country Central school district for lacking details in terms of teacher reduction and dual-language program reductions.

“How do you expect the community to know what’s at stake when you don’t tell them what at stake?...This should’ve been made crystal clear to the voters before they went to vote,” said Odicon who received applause from the audience at this statement.

“I don’t think we have 4,000 people who don’t care about their children’s future, I think they need to know what’s at stake… this board did not give voters an informed choice.”

Buddy Laurelson was critical of the 18% increase in the school treasurer’s salary of 18%, calling it far beyond what normal taxpayers would consider reasonable or standard. He also questioned the increase of 20 percent in legal expenses and overtime, asking for more transparency.