By Greg Sleter

With a difficult budget process successfully behind the North Babylon Board of Education, newly elected board president Bill Harrigan believes the seven-member board that he now leads will tackle many of the same fiscal issues it has faced in prior years.

"To me, the greatest challenge we face as a board is dealing with the cost of doing business within the confines of what the community is willing to pay," he said in an interview with the BEACON, just after being unanimously elected board president.

Paul Buraczenski, who served as school board president during the 2004-05 school year, was unanimously elected vice-president of the board.

While budgetary issues are the focus for school boards throughout Long Island, North Babylon has been particularly challenged as school district residents the past two years have rejected spending plans put forth by the board of education. Residents in a second vote in June ultimately approved a revised budget that trimmed about $500,000 from the original budget rejected in May.

The discontent North Babylon School District residents have shown at the voting booth the past two years has not been seen nor heard in a major way during monthly school board meetings, which in general are sparsely attended.

"I believe the district does a good job with mailings to get information out to the community," Harrigan said. "We are always looking for input and willing to listen to community members."

As the board continually works on budgetary issues, the new board president said some segments of the community may have concerns regarding how money in the district is spent, given headlines in recent months over improper use of school funds in other Long Island districts. Harrigan, however, was quick to note issues such as abuse of expense accounts and cell phones that have plagued other districts are not a concern in North Babylon.

"We don’t have any of that stuff here," he said. "In fact, the challenge we face each year with the budget is that there is less and less fat to cut."

He noted that despite the lightly attended school board meetings, the community as a whole does show a great deal of interest in school activities, with local residents often packing local schools during plays and sporting events.

"There is a real sense of community in North Babylon," said Harrigan, himself a life-long resident of the hamlet and member of the district’s class of 1971. "If we could get half those people who attend school events to come to [school board] meetings, we would have a great opportunity at hearing new ideas."

An area Harrigan believes the school district may need to look at improving is curriculum conformity between programs offered at the middle school and high school. "We need to make sure the curriculum of the middle school runs right into what is taught at the high school," he said. "This will make the transition easier for the students."

As Harrigan takes the board’s presidential reigns, he will be seated next to new schools superintendent Dr. Randy Bos, who is taking the district’s top administrative post after several years as superintendent of the Waterloo Central School District in upstate Waterloo, NY.

"I look forward to working with Dr. Bos and hearing what fresh new ideas he will bring to the district," he said.