How the South Country School District Burned Through Its Reserves, Gutted Its Classrooms, and Hired a PR Firm to Explain It All
I’ve been watching the South Country Central School District unravel for years now, and I’m tired of it. Tired of the press releases full of phrases like “strengthening oversight” and “corrective action plans.” Tired of watching the adults in the room fumble with public money while the kids in their care fall further behind. And I’m especially tired of nobody, not a single person in district leadership, standing up to say: this happened on my watch, and I take responsibility for it.
So let me lay out what’s happened, because the timeline tells a story that no amount of PR polish can cover up.
The Money Trail
The financial problems at South Country didn’t start last month. They didn’t start last year. Back in 2022, the district disclosed a structural budget deficit caused by a mismatch between bond payments issued from 2005 to 2009 and the state building aid meant to cover them. The bonds were spread over twenty years. The aid ran out sooner. Nobody in the business office caught it for more than a decade. The superintendent and assistant superintendent of finance left the district, and the instructional budget was cut by $2.4 million. That should have been the wake-up call. It wasn’t.
Fast forward to 2024-2025. The district overspent its voter-approved budget by approximately $3.49 million. The external auditors, Cullen & Danowski, confirmed the number. But the real gut punch came in the details: expenditures exceeded revenues by $16.2 million for the year. The district covered the gap by draining its reserves, burning through taxpayer dollars that had been set aside in prior years. The acting assistant superintendent for finance, John Belmonte, a consultant brought in through a contract after the previous finance chief was replaced, put it plainly: the expenses “may not have been handled in a timely fashion.” He said he doesn’t believe there was theft. I’ll take him at his word on that. But financial negligence on this scale doesn’t need to involve a crime to be a scandal.
The district’s own FAQ admits the 2024-2025 budget did not fully account for the end of temporary federal COVID-relief funds that had been supporting recurring expenses like salaries and special education programs. When those grants expired, the costs shifted back to the general fund, and nobody had planned for it. Rising benefits and transportation costs piled on. The fund balance dropped by $16 million, leaving an unassigned fund balance deficit of roughly $1.8 million.
Let me say that differently: the district spent money it didn’t have, used reserves it shouldn’t have touched at that scale, and left the cupboard bare for the next budget cycle. Then it started cutting.
The Human Cost
In the 2025-2026 budget, the district eliminated 51 positions, including 35 teachers and librarians, 12 teaching assistants, 3 safety officers, and a custodian. Voters approved that budget in May 2025. Then came mid-year cuts on top of those. The spending freeze hit in November, killing field trips and non-essential purchases while the district waited for the forensic audit results.
And then, in March 2026, Superintendent Antonio Santana proposed cutting another 55 positions for 2026-2027, including 43 teachers and five administrators. That’s over 100 positions slashed in two budget cycles. The proposed budget for next year is $152 million, which is $5 million more than the current year despite all the cuts, because costs keep rising for transportation, health insurance, and special education services.
Meanwhile, enrollment has declined almost 13 percent over the past decade, from 4,414 students to 3,845. That’s a real factor. Fewer students should mean some natural staffing adjustments. But a 13 percent enrollment drop doesn’t explain gutting the teaching staff by triple digits, and it certainly doesn’t explain how the district failed to budget for foreseeable cost increases in the first place.
The practical fallout is ugly. Class sizes at the middle and high school are projected in the low-to-mid twenties, which doesn’t sound catastrophic until you consider what’s been stripped away around them. Course offerings have been reduced. Clubs have been eliminated. Counseling support has thinned out. Pat Brady, president of the Bellport Teachers Association, told News 12 that cutting the frontlines is not supporting students. He’s not wrong.
And then there are the academic numbers, which make all of this feel even more urgent. Only about three in ten students in the district read at grade level. Parent Shannon Marshall put it bluntly to News 12: they’re cutting English teachers while 70 percent of the kids can’t read on grade level. That’s not fiscal discipline. That’s institutional failure dressed up in spreadsheets.
A Thousand Kids in the Cold
On March 18, 2026, roughly a thousand students at Bellport High School walked out during sixth period. It was below freezing. Parents rallied across the street. Students carried signs and spoke into microphones on the football field. Student Ethan Hillard told reporters they were walking out in support of the people who had supported them from the beginning. Another student, Naomi Schindler-Schul, said there are fewer classes and people aren’t motivated to come to school anymore. A kid named Jesse said the adults had underestimated what students could do.
These aren’t radicals. These are teenagers who like their teachers and don’t want to lose them. They organized on their own. They risked unexcused absences. They stood outside in March on Long Island to make a point that the district’s own leadership apparently couldn’t be bothered to hear. Superintendent Santana responded with a letter that praised “civic engagement” while reminding everyone that students who left class would be marked absent. A masterclass in missing the point.
Who Is Accountable?
This is the question that keeps nagging at me, and it’s the reason I’m writing this.
The board hired the external auditors. Good. They hired Investigative Management Group to conduct a forensic audit. Fine. They brought in Belmonte on a consulting contract to handle the finances. Okay. But the forensic audit still isn’t finished as of this writing. A group of 158 residents, including 13 current students, sent an open letter to State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli asking for a full independent state audit. The district’s response to outside scrutiny has been to hire a public relations firm and publish FAQ pages that read like they were drafted by a lawyer, not an educator.
Board president E. Anne Hayes told the community in a November 2025 letter that they “remain committed to building trust and confidence.” I’ve heard that phrase, or something like it, from every failing institution I’ve ever covered. Trust isn’t built with commitment statements. It’s built by telling people the truth before they have to drag it out of you, and by holding someone accountable when things go sideways.
Who approved the spending that exceeded the budget by $3.5 million? Who failed to plan for the expiration of federal COVID relief funds that everyone in public education knew were temporary? Who let the structural bond deficit fester from 2005 until it was finally discovered in 2022? These aren’t rhetorical questions. They have answers. The community deserves to hear them.
What Happens Next
The budget vote for 2026-2027 is coming up in May. If voters reject the proposed budget, the district goes to austerity, which means even deeper cuts, starting with extracurriculars, athletics, and anything else that isn’t mandated by state law. Teacher Matthew Kinigson told News 12 that the community has finally figured out their kids are going to suffer. Resident Scott Munson warned that music and arts will be the first things cut under austerity, the programs that separate the high-achieving kids from everyone else.
The district is also considering cutting private and parochial school busing eligibility from a 25-mile radius down to 15, a change that would save around $900,000 but affect transportation for roughly 121 students. That’s the kind of move that shifts the burden directly onto families, particularly the ones who can least afford it.
I don’t pretend to have a simple solution to a problem this layered. Declining enrollment, rising mandated costs, expired federal funding, and a decade of deferred financial reckoning don’t get fixed with a single board vote. But I know what accountability looks like, and I know what its absence looks like. Right now, in South Country, I see the absence.
The students who walked out of Bellport High on March 18 did something that most of the adults running this district have failed to do: they told the truth in public, with their names attached, knowing there would be consequences. They deserve leadership that matches their courage.
This is the Soap Box. If you have an opinion on what’s happening in our community, we want to hear it. Contact us at MyBellport.com to submit your piece.
Author: Dean
Dean is a writer and longtime Long Island resident who covers local government, community issues, and the stories that don't always make the evening news. He believes the best local journalism starts with a simple question: where is the money going, and who is it helping? When he's not writing, he's probably arguing about the best coffee shop.
