Hours before an ugly overnight storm slammed into Bridgewater, it was probably the least likely of times to expect a large turnout at a Bridgewater-Raritan School Board meeting. But that’s exactly what happened last night.
A standing-room only crowd of over 100 people packed the conference room of the Wade Administration Building in Martinsville to hear a presentation of the 2009/2010 Bridgewater-Raritan School Budget by Superintendent Dr. Michael Schilder.
In recent years, this type of occurrence is rare, very rare indeed. When it happens, you gotta know that some people have stirred up a controversy, and that rumors have been swirling around within the school community that something dire, very dire is about to happen. So you’d better show up at the Board meeting to make sure that it doesn’t.
The controversy: Athletics. At least one board member, Christine Schneider, said that she had received “panicked” phone calls from parents about cuts in that program. Schneider is also Superintendent of the Bridgewater Township Recreation Department.
I don’t know what the fuss was all about. I just checked the detailed budget for the 2009/2010 school year and noticed, for example, that the amount listed under “Athletic Activities” is $1.323 million, a mere $2,151 less than last year’s $1.325 million. The difference is almost lost in the rounding.
One of the items that the Board and Administration removed from their preliminary budget numbers is $31,900 for co-curricular and athletic awards. Not a single person from that overflow crowd came to the podium to say that the $32k should be reinserted in the budget.
When I walked into the room last night, I did not see any copies of the detailed budget proposal on the table with all of the other papers available to the public. It could have saved a lot of angst.
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