Even with my background, I find that one of the hardest things to do is to try to absorb all of the intricacies of a school budget presentation. I find that to be especially true when my first exposure is to observe a 19-page PowerPoint pitch which summarizes the impact of a larger 59-page detailed budget handout.
I’m not complaining. The administration has done its best to present data in a very short period of time, one which of necessity does not permit the listener to ask questions as the presenter is speaking. Although there is a 5-minute opportunity to ask questions later in the open-to-the-public portion of the meeting, that’s hardly enough. Besides, the atmosphere in this school district at the moment is very much emotionally charged.
With that as a caveat, let me do my best to summarize my understanding of where the district finds itself financially, and what the impact is on your pocketbook.
In December, 2009, the B-R BOE voted to accept a preliminary budget of $136.9 million for the school year beginning July 1, 2010. As I mentioned in one of my prior blog posts, this number rarely changes and is usually presented to the public in the following April’s school election as is. Not this year. Enter Chris Christie as our new governor. He is determined to close a state budget gap.
Christie cancelled $4M of anticipated state aid to this district. (Ouch, that hurts!): A frenetic scramble began to lower expenses. In the first round of cuts on February 23rd, the B-R BOE sliced $2M from the budget by reducing expenses and by pulling back surplus funds that had been allocated to the 2011/2012 school year’s budget: Pouf! Gone, just like that.
Tuesday evening, at the JFK School in Raritan, the board announced a second round of $2.4M in cuts, resulting in a total reduction of $4.4M so far. This drops the current proposed budget expenditures to $132.5M, a 0.51% reduction (one-half of one percent) from last year’s actual school expenditures of $133.2M.
According to Michael Schilder and Peter Starrs this is the first time that there has been an expense reduction to total B-R school expenses since at least 1992/93.
You might think that an expense budget lower than last year’s would result in a reduction to your real estate bill in Bridgewater and Raritan. But hold on. Your taxes are still going up. The total tax levy is increasing from last year’s $113.4M assessment to $117.9M, a 4% increase, the maximum permitted under New Jersey law. This means that your tax rate per $100 of assessed value will go up by 5.2% to $1.22 if you live in Bridgewater; and, by 3.3% to $1.27 if you live in Raritan.
Why? State aid for Bridgewater-Raritan is $9.9M for 2010/2011, higher even than last year’s state aid distribution of $8.7M. However, according to numbers presented last night, the B-R BOE School District was banking on $12.3M in state aid, as it built the first draft of the 2010/2011 budget. Therefore, despite expense levels close to those of last year, it would take further cuts to offset wage increases and lost state aid.
Presumably, I haven’t bored you with numbers. Remember: every dollar of reductions in this budget has in some way affected a BR-BOE employee. Thanks for reading and remain engaged.
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