No Official Word, but School Officials 'Not Optimistic' on Bond Interest Grant

Two weeks after sending a grant proposal to Albany to apply for up to $5 million in bond interest payment credits, school officials are saying it's not looking like Riverhead Central School District will be receiving the grant funding.

"It's looking like it will be students with at least 60 percent of the population with free and reduced lunches," said Interim Finance Superintendent Joe Singleton, who brought the proposal to Albany firsthand during the first week of May.

Superintendent Nancy Carney confirmed Singleton's words, saying "we're not optimistic" the district would receive the grant funding.

However Carney said that no official notification has come as of yet, and so he was "not comfortable saying we didn't get anything."

But with a free and reduced lunch rate between 46 and 47 percent, Carney conceded that more needy districts such as Wyandanch and Brentwood would be the Long Island districts most likely to receive the grant funding before Riverhead.

Carney said schools' free and reduced lunch rates were the only criteria used in qualifying for the grant.

A call to the State Child Nutrition Knowledge Center was answered, but the individual with direct knowledge of the grant was not available for comment.

School officials applied for the grant hoping to knock some interest payment off a future capital improvement bond proposal, . Had the school qualified, a vote on the bond would have been required before Sept. 30.

Carney couldn't say for sure when a vote on the bond may be held, since "that's up to the board of education. We're going with the original plan to go over things carefully, revise it as needed, and judge things based on the economy," he said.

The Community Partnership for Revitalization, the school committee in charge of presenting a final bond number to the school board on Tuesday, is scheduled to hold its final meeting Thursday night.