An Eventful Final Board Meeting of 2009

The Port Washington Board of Education convened Wednesday, Dec. 15 for its final meeting of 2009.

Though there was no groundbreaking news dispersed at the meeting, there were some key points:

The board approved the transfer of $801,322 from the Employees' Retirement System Reserve, allowing the annual payment to be made to the New York State & Local Retirement System for the 2009-10 school year.

The board also approved a sum of $913,628 to be applied from the Undesignated Fund Balance (UFB) to the Reserve for Employee's Retirement System contributions, "to be utilized against future obligations in the 2010-2011 budget cycle," according to material handed out at the meeting. According to Board President Karen Sloan, the approved sum is just four percent of the total UFB, which hovers around $4 million. (In a related note, Newsday was drastically inaccurate in its reporting of Port Washington's UFB in mid-December, citing numbers nearly $3 million short of the actual total.)

The board accepted numerous recommendations to support contracts with other Long Island school districts for special education arrangements during the 2009-10 school year. These districts include, Herricks Union Free School District, Lawrence Public Schools, North Shore Central School District, Oyster Bay-East Norwich Central School District, Locust Valley Central School District, Lindenhurst Union Free School District, Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District, and Manhasset Union Free School District.

Port Washington also approved agreements with special education service providers, including Tracy Talk, a speech pathologist; Vasilis Boutis; The Lowell School and Harmony Heights.

David Hinchcliffe was appointed lead counselor at Schreiber High School.

Mehri Fryzel, the Executive Director of Pupil Personnel Services in Port Washington schools, will be appointed Medicaid Compliance Officer for the 2009-10 school year, effective Jan. 1.

The next board meeting will be held Jan. 5 at 8 p.m. at Schreiber High School. The meeting after that is scheduled for Jan. 19, also at 8 p.m. at Schreiber High School.