Rockville Centre board adopts $141.3 million preliminary budget, warns of staff reductions and program trade-offs

The Rockville Centre Board of Education on April 16 adopted a proposed $141,323,369 budget for the 2026–27 school year, keeping the district's tax levy increase within the legal cap while proposing programmatic staff reductions and selected restorations.

Superintendent Michael Gavin presented the three-part budget—administration ($12,324,153), academic program ($110,730,013) and capital ($18,269,203)—and said the total represents a $1.4 million, or 1.03%, budget-to-budget increase. Gavin told the board that health insurance and a multi-year decline in enrollment are major drivers: "our health insurance is rising to the tune of about $2 million," he said, and the district has seen about an 8% drop in enrollment over the past decade.

The administration proposed restoring 13 facilitator positions (an internal reallocation of about $120,000) and prioritized hiring a BCBA psychologist and an additional nurse to reduce outside contracted services. At the same time, the draft reflects proposed reductions including 22.2 teaching positions (described by the administration as 19 excess positions plus 3.2 part-time/resignation adjustments) and a reduction of 40 teaching-assistant positions; some of those TA reductions are contingent on state aid changes. Gavin said additional…