East Hampton Budget Passes; 3 New Board Members Elected

East Hampton School District voters easily approved a $64.2 million budget, 561-to-122, and three new members were elected to board of education on Tuesday night.

Kerri Stevens, the district clerk, announced the results; Wendy Geehreng earned the most votes with 450 votes, followed by JP foster with 430 votes, and Rich Wilson with 302. Geehreng is Foster's sister-in-law.

There were a total of six candidates, including one incumbent, running for three seats on the East Hampton school board. Alison Anderson, who is finishing her first term on the board, received 246 votes. She was the only incumbent seeking re-election. George Aman, the current board president, decided not to run so he could seek administrative positions in neighboring districts. Lauren Dempsey also decided to leave her post at the end of the term, in late June. 

Nicholas J. Boland, who was running with Geehreng and Foster, came in fourth with 277 votes. Anderson came in fifth, and Mary Ella Moeller came in sixth with 183 votes. 

Stevens said that there were 32 absentee ballots and two affidavit. 

Last year, when there were only two people running for two seats, there was 568 votes cast. 

 The approved budget's tax levy is $46.8 million. It falls under the 2-percent tax levy increase cap due to exemptions to the estimated tax levy increase of 5.01 percent. 

 The approved spending budget is $1.4 million or 2.2 percent more than the 2012-13 budget, and will mean a yearly increase of $152.20 if your property is assessed at $6,000. If it's assessed at $8,000, the yearly increase is $209.60. 

 Despite the increases, the school board and administration worked hard over the past few months to cut just over $1 million of the budget to stay within the tax cap, according to Superintendent Rich Burns last month when the board adopted the budget. "No positions are being totally eliminated," Burns said. 

Instead, programming in some areas was "fractionalized," or is being cut down a bit. For more information on the programming changes, click here.