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Westhampton Beach's board of education reviews budget wants and needs in the building and grounds and technology departments for next school year during the February 26 meeting.
The Westhampton Beach Board of Education listened to budget wants and needs from its technology and building and grounds departments during presentations made during a board meeting Monday night, February 26.
Assistant Superintendent for Personnel and Instruction William Fisher, presenting the budget that Director of Curriculum and Instructional Technology Dr. Jessica Williams worked to craft, said the central data processing code is up 1.8 percent from last year, to $402,000.
While Fisher said most codes remain flat, increases can be seen in repairs and licensing, up $7,000 due to a swell in annual licensing fees, and $200 from contractual increases with Eastern Suffolk BOCES.
“We work to manage the goals of maintaining the infrastructure and working to benefit all of the things that we’re required to do with respect to data privacy and creating efficiencies within the setup of our hardware and supplies,” Fisher said. “We work to keep that budget code as tight as we can year-to-year.”
The computer-assisted classroom instruction budget is also up 1.47 percent, to $398,000.
The budget line includes hardware, software and maintenance services to support and promote classroom instruction. It is on the rise because the district will be expanding the use of certain elementary school software its seen success with to other grade levels. Annual subscriptions for classroom program subscriptions has also increased, Fisher said.
Assistant Plant Facilities Administrator Anthony Martino said he also foresees some increases, but added several budget increases will be offset by decreases on other budget lines.
For instance, Martino said independent contract costs will increase $63,000, mainly to incorporate lawn care, though he added all contracts seem to go up year over year. To equalize that, the district has seen a savings of approximately $76,000 on its electric bill due to lighting upgrades, and another $7,000 in gas following a boiler tuneup.
“With the cost of utilities increasing, it shows what we are doing is working,” Martino said.
He added that $32,000 was saved in his BOCES code by doing water testing this year. Martino said he would like to purchase a bobcat to do more work in-house, and added he believes the money would be made back relatively quickly via savings from having to hire outside contractors.
The back gymnasium in the elementary school, he added, needs flooring work totaling $43,000.
“It’s yellow and slippery,” Martino said. “We need to take it down to the bare wood and use water-based polyurethane finish to make it clean and safe. It’s needed. The time has come.”
The district is also looking to do $1 million worth of capital projects, including changing a main water valve in the elementary school, updating water fountains that aren’t bottle filled, locker room and shower renovations in the high school, changing out doors and hardware, creating covers for steam radiators, updating ceiling tiles with improved lighting and painting that custodians can’t do, like in the main foyer of the middle school.
“Budget work continues,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Carolyn Probst said. “We are continuing to work with the overall budget. It certainly is not going to be an easy budget year.”
The athletic department budget was also scheduled to be presented, but has been moved to the next meeting, March 11, as Jason Cohen, director of health, physical education and athletics, was attending the girls basketball team’s Suffolk County semifinal playoff game. He will present alongside other departments next month.
