Three Village Times

Anton Community Newspapers • 132 East 2nd Street • Mineola, NY 11501 • Phone: 516-747-8282 • FAX: 516-742-5867

News

Residents Go To Polls For Budget, School Boards May 15

Friday, 11 May 2012 00:00

Local districts face first voting year with 2 percent tax cap

Long Island residents will go to the polls on Tuesday, May 15 to vote on the proposed school budgets and school boards for the 2012-13 school year. This marks the first year district will need to get under a 2 percent tax cap.

The Elmont School District (ESD) is proposing a $78,560,346 budget for the 2012-13 school year. The budget calls for a 2.8 percent increase in spending over the 2011-12 budget. A 6.9 percent tax levy increase is reflected in the budget, which requires 60 percent voter approval to pass.

Richard S. Rozakis starts July 1

When Garden City resident Richard S. Rozakis was recently approved to the appointment of superintendent of schools for the Babylon School District, it was the culmination of a 29-year climb up the ladder in the field of education. After starting out as a social studies teacher in the Sewanhaka Central school district, Rozakis’ career path took him through stops as an assistant principal at New Hyde Park Memorial High School, a principal at Glen Head’s North Shore High School and his current job as assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in the Bellmore-Merrick Central High school district. It’s a journey he felt drawn to dating back to his time growing up in Elmont.

“I think I had wanted to be a teacher back when I was a kid helping my friends do their homework, teaching them how to tell time—doing things that I didn’t even know was teaching at the time,” he recollected. “I taught in my church when I was an older teenager. I was always like that and it always felt like it was a natural thing for me to do. Then I went through the whole ladder of education, [eventually] hitting every rung.”