South Country, Port Jefferson, Greenport, Southampton and Three Village districts under 'fiscal stress,' comptroller says
The South Country school district, which includes Bellport High School, was designated as being under "moderate stress." Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas
Five Long Island school districts have been designated as facing varying degrees of fiscal strain, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced Thursday.
The districts, all in Suffolk County, were among 31 statewide highlighted in DiNapoli's report, which is based on information from the school fiscal year ended June 30, 2025. The comptroller's office said that number is up from the prior school year, when 22 districts were considered to be in fiscal stress, including three on Long Island.
Of the five Island districts listed in report, the South Country school district was the only one to be identified as facing "moderate stress" — the second-highest level measured by DiNapoli's office.
South Country administrators have been taking steps to recover after officials acknowledged the district overspent last school year's approved budget by $3.49 million. Those steps have included freezing all discretionary spending.
In a Friday statement, South Country district officials said the designation was not unexpected given the current financial challenges the district is facing. They pointed to actions taken to overcome the financial situation such as bringing in John Belmonte, a business official with more than 30 years’ experience in the structure and management of public school district finances, hiring a forensic auditing firm to conduct a root-cause analysis and developing a 3-year recovery plan.
School officials said they will work with members of the comptroller's team as they develop the 2026-27 budget.
"It is the district’s expectation that as a result of these new procedures and best practices, by the third year of our three-year recovery plan, the district’s financial footing will be strong once again and we will be in a position to start replenishing the district’s reserve funds," the statement said.
'Susceptible' to stress
Four other Suffolk districts — Greenport, Port Jefferson, Southampton and Three Village — were all classified in DiNapoli's report as "susceptible" to stress, the state's mildest of three categories.
Jean Mingot, Southampton's assistant superintendent for business, said in a statement that he identified discrepancies in the district's cash and investment and liabilities categories in the comptroller's report.
"We will be contacting the Office of the State Comptroller to request a review and correction of the district’s fiscal stress score," Mingot said.
Three Village schools Superintendent Kevin Scanlon said in an interview Friday that the designation resulted from a low reserve account. Scanlon said the district used funds from its reserve account during the pandemic to help keep some students in the district.
"We've been slowly paying it back since COVID ended," he said. "Simultaneously to that, what we're also doing is looking at some of the properties in the district and putting them up for either lease or sale to gain some revenue in the district."
Officials with the Port Jefferson and Greenport districts did not return requests for comment.
Loss of pandemic funding cited
A release from the comptroller's office said fiscal stress determinations are based on factors such as "year-end fund balance, operating deficits, cash position and reliance on short-term debt for cashflow."
DiNapoli in the release suggested that a loss of pandemic funding has put a strain on some school districts.
"In recent years, pandemic-related federal funding as well as increases in state aid have provided districts with significant financial support," DiNapoli wrote. "With much of the relief funding having been spent, the number of school districts in fiscal stress has returned to pre-pandemic levels this year. As districts continue to adjust to these conditions, officials should make every effort to ensure budgets are structurally balanced to avoid fiscal problems going forward."
The release states that from the 2019-20 school year to 2024-25, districts spent $4 billion of about $4.6 billion in available federal pandemic relief funding.
"With this funding dwindling, in SY 2024-25, districts reported spending only $317 million in combined federal pandemic relief funding, a decrease of over 70% from SY 2023-24," DiNapoli wrote.
