NY School District Inflated Budget, Raised Taxes
School officials in a New York school district overestimated how much it costs to run the schools and even raised taxes, all to be caught with a $25 million surplus, an audit by the New York State Comptroller’s Office found.
Over four years, the West Islip Union Free School District on Long Island overestimated expenses by almost $25 million and hid its surplus funds, the audit found, Newsday reported.
Each year, district officials overestimated costs by about 5 percent on average, with surplus funds ranging from 7 percent to almost 8 percent of the next year's budget, as opposed to the legal maximum of 4 percent.
School districts are supposed to draw down excess surplus funds, not raise taxes and continue to add to it.
The auditors in state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli’s office recommended the district "adopt realistic budgets" and use reserves to benefit district residents.
The overestimated budgets "resulted in real property tax levies that are higher than necessary,” the audit said, noting that the district raised the tax levy by about $6.2 million from school year 2017-2018 through 2020-2021, Newsday reported.
Seeing its excess funds, the district made $17.9 million worth of unbudgeted transfers to its reserve funds, the audit found.
The “extra money” came after the district overestimated costs for tuition, services for students with disabilities, health insurance and employee retirement system contributions, the report said. That lead to collecting more tax money than needed to pay for those things, and an inflated surplus.
The 2021-2022 budget was $127.5 million, and as of June 30, 2021, the district had $18.7 million in operating surplus and $30.2 million in total reserves, Newsday reported.
School district officials need to be reminded that it’s not their money to play with, it’s the taxpayers' money.
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