Port Jefferson schools will bond and use funds available from reserves to pay the $16.5 million they had agreed to set aside to settle seven lawsuits filed by former students alleging a principal high schooler sexually abused her decades ago.

The school board voted 5-0 to approve a resolution at a meeting Tuesday night to use $5.1 million in reserves and fund up to $11.4 million through bonds. Two council members were absent.

The payment plan came less than two weeks after the board announced it had approved settlements with seven plaintiffs who sued the district under the Child Victims Act, which allowed victims of childhood sexual abuse to file lawsuits during a look-back window.

The district said it couldn’t find insurance coverage for the decades-old damage and had to pay the amount with a combination of money from existing reserve funds and debt financing, meaning loans.

Taking out a bond spreads the financial burden over time, but adds costs overall.

The seven settlements account for about a third of the district’s budget, which was $48 million for the 2024-25 school year. Port Jefferson is a relatively small district on the North Shore of Suffolk County with approximately 910 students.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Anna Kull, declined to comment.

A district spokesman said the district’s decision to settle the cases came before the jury’s verdict against Bay Shore Schools.

A Suffolk jury on November 1 Awards a former Bay Shore school student who said he was abused by an elementary school teacher decades ago $25 million after finding the district liable.

As of this week, Long Island school districts have paid more than $128 million to settle 98 Child Victims Act cases, according to a Newsday database. The total cost rises to more than $150 million after the Bay Shore verdict.

About 80 cases remain active, including 36 against Bay Shore.

For Port Jefferson, the settlements marked the end of Child Victims Act claims, as the filing window closed in 2021.

School officials said the settlement of the cases “eliminated the potential for protracted litigation, which carries inherent risk and could have resulted in significantly higher overall costs for the district.”

With Jim Baumbach

Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, DC