Hempstead district to close school, calls for state intervention over projected $34M budget shortfall

Hempstead school officials called for state intervention Thursday, as the district faces a “financial crisis” that they blamed on rising charter school tuition payments.

The Nassau district is grappling with a projected $34 million budget deficit for the 2025-26 school year, officials said. The district expects to pay $106 million in charter school tuition for more than 3,700 students next school year, up $20 million from 2024-25 and nearly double what was owed in 2021-22, officials said.

Hempstead officials made the case Thursday for an infusion of state aid to help it make up the budget gap for the 2025-26 school year. To solve its long-term funding issues, officials also urged the state to change the formulas for school aid and what is used to calculate a district’s charter school tuition costs.

“Without financial relief, our students will suffer,” school board president Victor J. Pratt said at a news conference at Hempstead High School.

To make up for the budget shortfall, district officials told Newsday before the news conference that they are planning to close David Paterson Elementary School and lay off staff.

Officials said programs that have helped improve student outcomes and raise graduation rates to 87% are also at risk.

State Sen. Siela Bynoe (D-Westbury) said in a phone interview on Wednesday, ahead of the news conference, that she has advocated to Senate leadership for additional funding to help cover Hempstead’s budget shortfall, so that the district won’t need to close a school or have layoffs.

Gordon Tepper, the governor’s Long Island press secretary, said in an email that Hempstead’s state aid jumped from $163.7 million in 2021-22 to $247 million in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed 2025-26 budget, which must be approved by state lawmakers.

“That’s an absolutely massive increase under Governor Hochul,” Tepper wrote.

In 2024-25, Hempstead received $243 million in state aid.

‘Staggering budget deficit’

The district’s budget for the current fiscal year is $328 million and a quarter of it — $87 million — is for charter schools tuition payments.

Over the last decade, enrollment in Hempstead public schools has fluctuated but overall has been in decline, from nearly 7,000 K-12 students in 2013-14, according to state data, to what district officials project to be around 5,000 in 2025-26.

Meanwhile, enrollment has grown at the three area charter schools — Academy Charter School, Evergreen Charter School and Roosevelt Children’s Academy — with a fourth, Diamond Charter School, slated to open next fall.

For the 2024-25 school year, Hempstead is paying $26,196 per pupil. That rate is higher than those set for Roosevelt, Uniondale and Freeport, which pays about $8,000 less than Hempstead.

Sarah Brewster, co-founder of Evergreen Charter School, said her schools have been in Hempstead since 2009 and the issue the district faces is not a new one.

“The money belongs to all the taxpayers and individuals in the community,” she said in an interview Thursday. “The money follows the child where that child goes to school. It does a disservice to pit charter schools against traditional public schools.”

Brewster said charter schools are not going away and “we all want to work together to help students whether they go to a traditional public school or a charter school.”

Bishop Barrington Goldson, chief executive and president of Academy Charter, said in a statement emailed by a spokesman Thursday that “the Academy has no role in setting these allocations,” as the state determines per-pupil funding rates.

“It is important to acknowledge that addressing the district’s challenges is a shared responsibility, and attributing these difficulties solely to charter schools does not reflect the broader factors at play,” Goldson’s statement read in part.

On Tuesday, Bynoe introduced a bill to prohibit the establishment of new charter schools within a 5-mile radius of Hempstead, Uniondale and Roosevelt school districts, citing existing charter schools and the fiscal impact they have on districts’ budgets.

Assemblyman Noah Burroughs (D-Hempstead), a former Hempstead schoolteacher, said in an emailed statement, “I have made it my #1 priority to find a solution that eliminates the staggering budget deficit the public schools in the 18th Assembly District have faced over the last few years.”

Cost-cutting measures 

The district’s financial prospects have been so dire that Interim Superintendent Susan Johnson said she considered cutting programs such as pre-K and kindergarten because they are not mandatory.

Those programs will stay for now, but Johnson said she and her cabinet are looking at all areas for possible cuts.

Jamal Scott, assistant superintendent for business and operations, said the district will dip into its fund balance of $60 million. The district is already allocating $10 million from the fund balance for this school year’s budget and plans to take another $24 million for next, a practice they said is unsustainable.

Closing David Paterson Elementary would save the district about $7 million, officials said. Hempstead is also offering incentivized retirements across the district, including a one-time $15,000 stipend.

Sherlyn Gomez, 18, was among the students and educators who attended the news conference Thursday. The senior said she attended Front Street Elementary, which closed in 2022 and is now an elementary school for Evergreen Charter.

She recalled the impact budget cuts had on her when she attended Alverta B. Gray Schultz Middle School.

“When I wanted to join clubs and sports, they were like: ‘Oh, we don’t have that anymore,’ ” she recalled after the news conference.

Overall, Gomez said the schools have built back many of their programs and she’s had a “great” education at Hempstead.

The teen said she participated in a drama club, for example, and learned a lot about public speaking. Gomez, who plans to pursue in a career in nursing, said she is concerned whether such programs would stay for future students like the ninth graders she mentors through a school program.

“I do worry because it might motivate students to seek out other … schools where those opportunities may be offered,” she said. “It’s always about financial funding.” 

Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.