Brighter outlook for Mineola’s budget

BY JOSEPH D'ANDREA

The Mineola Board of Education gave a cautiously optimistic update on its budget and capital projects last Thursday at the January meeting and reported a decline in the school district’s debt.

Andrew Casale, assistant superintendent for Business and Operations for Mineola Public Schools, pointed out that the district’s debt is down 5% “due to one bus lease rolling off and no purchase this year.” He also mentioned a projected increase from $3.3 million to $3.5 million in Payment In Lieu Of Taxes.

“Looking ahead at the budget outlook in the district, we did just settle three of our five contracts. We had three unsettled contracts that we just recently settled this year, so that of course is looking ahead into 2023’s and 2024’s budget, and will obviously be an increase.”

Casale continued: “As we’ve highlighted over the last several meetings, we really got walloped with the health insurance rates this January and our health bill is over $200,000 [more] per month. And, of course, we need to account for projected increases for next January as well because the trend continues to be pretty significant in the healthcare market.”

Also noted was the increasing cost for garbage and utilities, such as fuel for buses. Dr. Michael P . Nagler, superintendent of schools for the Mineola Union Free School District, spoke on the board’s expectations.

“In spite of all these increases, we do expect some increases in revenue that are going to offset this. But we can’t always expect increases in revenue to offset things, so we need to be prudent in what we propose.”