This letter informs the Amityville School Board that we oppose any proposed budget cuts that would eliminate transportation to private schools.

As Amityville residents, we have been diligently paying our taxes for years and have asked for minimal use of the schools. We send our children to other schools for various reasons but in doing so save the school district’s budget tremendously. As of now, you have a near $122MM budget with ~2750 children. That equates to an expenditure of approx. $44K/child. The district transports roughly 550 children to other schools that are privately funded for $2.2MM. This equates to roughly $4,000/child. This is the most economical thing for your budget. If all of these private school children went to AUFSD, you would need to come up with another $24MM in funding (550 X $44,000).

Additionally, you are contemplating the cuts to schools that, as you say, fall just outside of the 15-mile limit. Based on my measurement details, our school district sits at 14.9 miles from Chaminade at its closest edge. Granted that is not a student's home right now, but it may be one day, and it proves the point that we are not discussing a distance of 25, 30, or 40 miles. We are debating in the tenths of a mile.

For years, as taxpayers of this district, we have approved bonds for projects that have been disastrous to the district’s finances (Park Ave). We have endured mismanagement of funds, rescues from the state, and layoffs of friends and family, and all the while, we have voted for your budgets and paid our share of expenses while asking for very little from the school district.

Your proposed actions to cut the transportation are short sited and also ill timed. Many students and parents have recently chosen to begin Chaminade in the Fall or re-join. We have just paid our tuition in February and are just learning about these proposed cuts.

We would ask that what you do for our children is not to cut this portion of the budget.