Among those, I believe that Jeffrey Brookner, the president of the Bridgewater-Raritan School Board, is highly influential, at least in this stage of the process.
More than anything else, the contentious issue of further reducing the budget or of coming up with merely token cuts or none at all is a major policy decision.
Consequently, Mr. Brookner’s position on additional budget reductions as he advances his views constitutes a major policy stand which will demonstrate his mettle in dealing with the voters’ message delivered in the April 20th election.
In one of the public meetings which I attended since the school budget was first proposed in December, 2009, someone raised the question of why the entire custodial staff was being outsourced. Mr. Brookner responded that this district could no longer afford above-market salaries for their services.
If that’s true, then there needs to be a compelling reason as to why all other employees in the three bargaining units representing teachers, support staff, principals and supervisors will have the benefit of above-market contract salary increases, in addition to the above-market salary rates of the previous two years.
The Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association’s piece of the pie is a 4.35% contract increase beginning July 1.
Note: The committee charged with representing the two municipalities and the school district in discussions which took place on May 6th is composed of the following officials: Denise Carra and John LaMaestra for Raritan Borough; Matthew Moench and Christine Henderson Rose for Bridgewater Township; Jeffrey Brookner, Lynne Hurley and Michael Schilder for the school district.
Tomorrow evening at 7:00 PM, the Bridgewater Township Council and the Raritan Borough Council will meet in a special joint meeting at the Bridgewater Municipal Complex to discuss and to possibly take action on the failed school budget.
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