On the ballot: $125.77 operating budget, propositions for new bus facility,
all-purpose turf field and repair reserve

Riverhead Central School District voters will weigh in tomorrow on a proposed $125.77 million operating budget for the upcoming school year.

The proposal represents a $4.55 million spending increase, or 3.76 percent, over last year’s adopted budget.

If approved, the budget would require a tax levy increase of $3.688 million, or $3.94 percent, over 2014-2015. The tax levy increase is nearly $600,000 lower than the increase allowed under the state “tax cap” legislation, which would have allowed a 4.58 percent increase in the tax levy, when capital construction costs are taken into account as allowed by law.

The proposed budget focuses on preserving and enhancing programs — developing curriculum to meet state standards, adding electives and preserving AP choices in high school, expanding the use of computer technology and continued support of co-curricular and extracurricular activities, including the arts, music, athletics and BOCES occupational programs, according to the district.

In addition to the operating budget (Proposition I), voters will decide three additional ballot propositions.

Proposition II would authorize the expenditure of $9.5 million in capital reserve funds to: buy and renovate an Edwards Avenue site for use as a new transportation facility; demolish the existing bus garage; erect a new buildings and grounds facility on the main campus; and construct or reconstruct athletic fields on the main campus.

Proposition III would authorize the district to borrow $1.2 million to construct a new turf field on the main campus — but only if the bus garage proposition (no. II) is approved.

Proposition IV would authorize the appropriation of $5 million from the district fund balance or other available funds into a repair reserve fun for the purpose of funding major repairs to district buildings and facilities.

The special propositions have sparked controversy in the district.

The existing bus maintenance garage, located in the middle of the main campus, was built as a horse barn in 1920 and is in a state of disrepair. District officials would like to raze it and use the space for a new buildings and grounds maintenance building and new athletic fields.

Community opposition in Aquebogue scuttled a plan to build a new transportation facility on Tuthills Lane in 2009. Local opposition had the same impact on a 2013 proposal to build the new facility on property adjacent to Phillips Avenue Elementary School in Flanders.

Now, Calverton residents have expressed opposition to the acquisition of a seven-acre site on Edwards Avenue, the former home of TS Haulers, for use as a bus garage. Residents have voiced concerns about increased traffic in the area and the ability of the NY 25- Edwards Avenue intersection — which has been rated dysfunctional — to handle school bus traffic.

Carney defended the site selection at an April 15 Calverton Civic Association meeting, where residents questioned the appropriateness of the location in an “outlying” area and complained about the already-overburdened Edwards Avenue- Route 25 intersection. A new Hampton Jitney terminal is about to open on a nearby parcel, as well.

The site was previously used as a depot for large trucks, Carney told residents. Its 7,200-square-foot building will provide ample space for a repair garage, though the district would construct an addition for an office, according to officials. There’s plenty of room to park the district’s fleet of buses, and the site has the space to add a fueling station as well as to provide parking for employees’ cars.

As for its location on the western end of town, Carney noted the bulk of district’s student population live in the Calverton and Flanders areas, both in the western region of the district and readily accessible from the Edwards Avenue site.

At a sparsely attended May 9 Jamesport-South Jamesport Civic Association meeting, residents again questioned Carney about the transportation facility plan — as well as about the other ballot propositions.

South Jamesport resident Larry Simms sought specific details about the Edwards Avenue site, necessary renovations to the existing building and information about the 2013 proposal for the Flanders site. He also peppered the superintendent with questions about operating budget details, the repair reserve, the athletics program and the plans for new athletic fields. Carney was unable to answer a number of questions or provide some of the information he sought and she told him she would do so by email. Simms put his questions in an email to Carney last Monday and she wrote back on Wednesday to say she would respond “as soon as possible.” No information has been forthcoming, Simms said in an email this weekend. He accused the superintendent of “stonewalling anyone with legitimate questions.”

The turf field proposition is also controversial. It was put on the ballot as a result of the demands of parents and students who argue that Riverhead teams, particularly lacrosse teams, are at a disadvantage because they are competing against schools that have turf fields. In spring, the teams are often forced to practice indoors because of snow and the condition of the grass fields. The existing fields are in bad shape and lack adequate sidelines, with the lacrosse field running right into a fence at one corner.

If the turf field proposition passes, it won’t take effect unless the transportation facility also passes, because the field would be built in the area of the existing transportation facility.

At the Jamesport civic meeting, Aquebogue resident Cliff Baldwin was critical of the district’s decision to stay with an eight-period school day in the high school, which he said impaired students’ ability to take electives, forcing them to “attend night school” at the community college. A hundred students have been pressing for the nine-period day, he said.

Returning to a nine-period day would require the addition of eight or nine teachers at the high school, Carney told him.

But Baldwin argued that the students who wanted the turf field were in the minority, too.

“It’s really a minority percentage of the two students in the two schools [middle school and high school] who would benefit by a turf field,” Baldwin said. “Overall only about 30 percent of students are involved in sports.”

“It sounds like the greater good is considered when we’re talking about academics,” Simms added, “but not when we’re talking about athletics.”

Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. tomorrow. Residents vote at their local elementary schools, except residents who would vote at Roanoke Avenue school will vote at the high school.