Sachem School District Voters Pass New Budget For 2024 to 2025

SACHEM, NY — Residents have spoken, and cast their ballots in favor of passing the Sachem Central School District's newly pitched budget by a wide margin during a re-vote after the first budget failed last month.

According to a vote count televised on YouTube, the budget passed by a vote of 3,355 "yes" to 1,573 "no," or 68 percent

The board of education thanked the community for coming together to pass the budget and support the students.

In May, after the proposed Sachem Central School District's proposed budget for 2024 to 2025 failed to pass by the 60 percent majority needed to pierce the cap — the district was one of six on Long Island seeking to pierce the tax cap, and only one of two to see the budget defeated — a new vote was scheduled for Tuesday, June 18, in the Samoset Annex and Samoset Middle School gym, district officials said.

The district came back to voters with a $374 million budget within the district's tax cap with a tax levy of 1.92 percent, which is compliant with the district’s tax cap limit.

"Following the defeat of our budget on May 21, the district faced tough decisions as we worked diligently to reduce expenditures. While we navigated these budgetary constraints, our commitment to providing quality education remained unwavering. We understand the importance of maintaining programs such as core curriculum and support services for our students," the district said. "Therefore, our budget reductions were strategic, with the goal of minimizing the impact on these essential areas. Those reductions, coupled with a $12.6 million allocation of reserves and fund balance, were the driving forces behind our ability to create a tax- cap compliant budget."

According to Newsday, the new budget would cut teaching positions, high school elective courses and other staff and services. A total of 21 jobs would be cut, in addition to the 70 cuts unveiled last month; the new tax levy would be 1.92 percent, Newsday said.

Last month, when the votes were tallied, 4176 voted "yes" for the budget, with 4127 "no votes," with 48.5 percent of the voters casting ballots to pass the budget.

When a budget fails, a district can hold a new vote and propose either the same, or a revised, budget; if the vote fails a second time, the district will be forced to adopt a contingency budget and face program cuts.

If that were to occur, the district said, "state law mandates that the tax levy increase over the current year be capped at 0 percent. This would require the district to make $9,226,000 million in additional reductions, which would further impact programs, eliminate capital projects and equipment purchases."

Sachem, along with West Babylon, saw their budgets defeated: Each of the four other districts where proposed budgets would pierce the cap: East Hampton, Springs, Amagansett and Port Washington, saw their budgets pass.A proposition to use reserves for Sachem softball field reconstruction passed, 4,230 to 3,938.

Tuesday's re-vote used paper ballots as the voting machines were being used for primary elections, the district said.