OUR TOWNS CENTRAL ISLIP School board OKs $192M budget BY SARAH ARMAGHAN sarah.armaghan@newsday.com Following a string of heated meetings since winter, the Cen- tral Islip school board — with a split vote — adopted a $192,496,924 budget for the 2014-15 school year. The board was divided 4 to 3, enough to pass the fiscal plan that increased spending 2.42 percent over the current year’s budget. By using $7.5 million from the district’s reserve funds, the tax rate decreased by 0.83 percent, saving the average homeowner with a $40,000 as- sessed value $70.12, Kevin Miller, the school’s business administrator, said at the Wednesday night meeting. School board president Fred Philips, along with board members Daniel Devine, Will- iam Softy and Edna Carbajal, voted in favor of the budget. Board members Doris Dod- son, Kelly Valentin and Mo- nique McCray dissented. Dodson, Valentin and Mc- Cray after the meeting cited lack of transparency and bud- geting concerns for their “nay” votes, The district came under fire last month when an audit from. the state comptroller conclud- ed that from 2008 to 2013, the district underestimated reve- nues while it overbudgeted ex- penditures to help finance the following years’ operations, which led to more than $25 mil- lion in surplus funds. Taxes increased 9 percent during that time. “After the audit, I didn’t feel comfortable [with the bud- get],” Valentin said. “I went line by line with the original btidget and saw all this excess money. I questioned it and I didn’t understand why we were continuing on with the same patterns prior to the audit being released.” Craig Carr, the district su- perintendent, questioned why the board members’ who voted no didn’t speak up dur- ing the vote. “What bothers me is not hearing from the naysayers,” he said after the meeting. ‘Taxpayer Beverly Rivera, 63, said the district has created “an issue of credibility and trust.” Rivera, a retired registrar at Stony Brook University, and Nancy Vargas-Johnson, 45, a real estate agent, met in re- cent weeks with Miller to help reduce the budget by $179,000 by cutting contractu- al services and the purchase of goods and discretionary funds. After next year’s budget goes into effect, the district will have $7.6 million left in its unre- stricted fund reserves, which will be under the comptroller’s recommended allowance, Mill- er said. Last year, $15 million was placed into an employees’ re- tirement reserve fund and $7.5 million was put toward a voter- approved capital project. Five new teachers, two social workers and an attendance teacher will be hired with this new budget, Carr said. Fifteen teachers are retiring at the end of this year, all of whom will be replaced. No programs, such as athlet- ics or music, have been cut.