In North Babylon, residents rejected a budget that carried an 18.75 percent tax hike. But then, they also rejected the three school board candidates who had been most critical of the budget. They figure the district's going to be run by the superintendent anyway, so the board members are unimportant. Even so, the assumption until recently was that single-day voting might help curb school spending. But projected spending is up 7.3 percent-the biggest increase in a decade.
Voter participation is down.
And 92 percent of school budgets passed last week on the first try. Some of the credit for this goes to local school officials, who made their case for extra classrooms and tutoring, if not for the 5.4 percent salary raises, typical of recent years. But other factors also played a part. Among these is a tax-relief program known as STAR, which substitutes state payments to schools for local tax revenues. Homeowners don't notice school taxes so much these days, because the full increases don't show up in their bills.