Editorial: School budgets face voters May 19

North Fork voters head to the polls Tuesday, May 19, with school districts trying to keep tax increases down – without hollowing out the programs families expect from their schools.

Combined, the four districts from Orient to Mattituck are asking voters to approve nearly $117 million in school spending for 2026-27 as administrators try to balance rising costs with declining enrollment and pressure to keep taxes down.

Greenport faces the toughest vote of the four. The district’s proposed $26 million budget asks residents to approve a tax increase above the cap while reducing staffing, as first-year Superintendent Beth Doyle tries to rein in years of reserve spending.

Mattituck-Cutchogue, meanwhile, put forward a $48.3 million budget with one of its lowest tax levy increases in years despite rising transportation, salary and health insurance costs. Southold’s $36.8 million spending plan stayed just under the tax cap while relying on reserves to help stabilize spending. Oysterponds is asking voters to approve a $5.98 million budget while pushing its levy increase to the cap limit.

By comparison, Shoreham-Wading River is reducing staff through attrition after a 15% enrollment decline, while Riverhead’s proposed $218.9 million budget is being driven heavily by rising special education costs.

Behind all of those budgets is the same challenge facing many small districts statewide: declining enrollment, rising costs and the growing pressure to maintain programs with fewer students filling classrooms.

The budget numbers matter. The school board races matter, too.

Young families continue getting priced out of the East End, and the enrollment trend in many districts is hard to ignore. Schools are still expected to offer strong academics, athletics, arts programs and extracurriculars. That math only works for so long.

Some districts are already sharing sports teams, AP classes, administrators and specialty programs.
On the South Fork, Southampton and Tuckahoe are already studying a possible merger. Nothing like that is being proposed here. But Mattituck-Cutchogue Superintendent Shawn Petretti has been one of the few local officials willing to publicly acknowledge where the numbers may eventually lead if enrollment keeps dropping and state aid formulas change.

He’s right to raise the issue.

The people running for school boards should be willing to engage in that conversation too — now, while districts still have options, not years from now when the choices become far more difficult.

Everybody wants the same thing: strong schools, manageable taxes and opportunities for students.

Keeping all three in balance is getting harder every year.