For the 2024-25 school year, the Bridgehampton School District will likely put a $22.64 million spending plan before taxpayers for the May 21 budget vote. It has yet to be formally adopted by the school board, however, as numbers can still change pending the outcome of budget talks between the New York State Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Over the objections of dozens of parents and teachers, and without waiting for the New York State Legislature to sort out funding to school districts by way of an established state budget, Amagansett became the first school district in East Hampton Town this week to finalize its 2024-25 budget.
Most school districts on Long Island are struggling to rein in tax-levy increases for next year’s budgets, with some planning teacher layoffs and program reductions in the face of harsh inflation and the possible loss of millions of dollars in New York State funding, but that’s not the case in Montauk, where in June of 2023, a school board member discovered a discrepancy in his school tax bill that will lead to a tax credit for Montauk homeowners next year.
Window strikes kill up to a billion birds annually and rank up there with cats and habitat destruction as the leading causes of recent steep declines. After the recent death of a much-watched Eurasian eagle-owl that was set loose from the Central Park Zoo, a bill calling for bird-friendly building measures has been revived in the New York Assembly and Senate.
