Sayville PTA holds budget meeting for clarity after social media rumors

The Sunrise Drive PTA held their monthly meeting on Tuesday, April 1 with superintendent, Dr. Marc Ferris, assistant superintendent for business, Rhonda Meserole, and Board of Education president, Tom Cooley in attendance to address concerns about the school budget for the 2025-2026 Sayville district.

Also in attendance was Dr. James Foy, principal of Sunrise Drive Elementary school who opened the discussion about the budget and said, “there were obstacles in the budget” but that all involved were “doing everything possible to mitigate” those issues and that “students are the first priority.”

Ferris prefaced the discussion and said, “Our job as administrators is to share information with what the budget is looking like and how we’re going to approach it. That then turns into Facebook posts and statements that may not be true and then accusations and then statements that we are corrupt or hiding things or we’re incompetent and I really don’t believe anything could be further from the truth, so I’m glad you’re here tonight so we can clarify some really important things.”

This year’s budget is under the tax cap, which Ferris said was a challenge given the loss of revenue, namely a drop in state aid and a PILOT grieved by the Bristal Assisted Living that resulted in a reduction of $462,000 (and a loss of $352,000 next year).

Ferris said the accommodations made in the budget to offset the loss in revenue would be “nothing a kid will notice” and stressed multiple times during the nearly two and half hour meeting that no material changes to services would be made.

A section that would have a direct impact was the increased class sizes for the incoming second graders across all three elementary schools in Sayville, with each school having two sections ranging from 23 to 25 students each.

In the previous years as kindergarteners and first graders, the incoming second grade class for the 2025-2026 year had class sizes under 20, some with as low as 14.

Parents showed great concern about the effect on special needs students as it was unclear how aides would be affected in this new configuration.

The universal pre-school program, which has eight sections planned for 2025-2026 with a maximum of 18 students per class receives approximately $5,400 per student from state funding, i.e. $97,000 per section or $740,000 for the program.

Parents inquired about possible savings from utilizing the SCOPE program, a decision was made eight years to use in-house teachers instead of hiring SCOPE, and Ferris said cutting UPK for the SCOPE program would result in “lesser quality” for the pre-kindergarten students as well as having to excess eight teachers.

Another concern for parents was the bus contract as costs are expected to have a sharp increase with mandates from the state about electric bus replacements as well as rising fuel costs. Meserole said that the contract had been awarded to Suffolk Transport after an RFP (request for proposals) was advertised. Meserole said five or six other companies had been contacted but Suffolk Transport was the only company that responded to the RFP.

Currently Suffolk Transport has 11 zero emission busses in its fleet and is currently applying to the state to be able to have a testing site on their property for the CDL license to help retain bus drivers, as there is a recruiting shortage in applicants.

Prior to the meeting, the PTA requested community members to submit questions on a Google document and one question proferred central administration take a voluntary pay freeze.

Ferris said that the administrators were “exemplary” and saw no reason to freeze salaries and that a freeze in salaries would only amount to $25,000 to $30,000 in savings as raises adjustments were under two percent.

Parents expressed concerns about a reduction in music services and increase of class sizes for lessons.

Ferris said that the music department was contacted about how to make strategic personnel decisions and that with lower enrollment in band and orchestra in the middle school and high school and that additional students in lesson groups would be helpful that the student experience “will be nearly identical.”

A parent, Mark Ruf, spoke aggressively to Cooley, Meserole, and particularly Ferris telling them to “stop with the games” and “you need to fix it” and asked Meserole directly why she was leaving her position. Ruf accused the administrators and board of education member of being racist and subsequently left the meeting of his own volition.

Cooley, who teared up in addressing the crowd, said “I just want to say, I’m a resident, I’ve been on the board for 15 years and I’ve never had anyone call me a racist. That is against everything in my body. I have family in this school district, extended family. I have lived here all my life and for someone like that to say that is outrageous. And that’s what's wrong with Facebook, cause people can just pull pieces apart, they’ve done it to other board members, making accusations, and it’s not fair.”

The group came to a consensus that the ongoing social media rumors were why the meeting was taking place.

Some parents asked for clarification on the funding for attorney fees and settlements of ongoing lawsuits against the district and if the loss of those funds had impacted the 2025-20256 budget.

While Cooley, Ferris, and Meserole said they could not comment on ongoing litigation, they did mention that claims go through their insurance company.