Bridgewater’s Terry O’Shea Advances in Competition

O'Shea looks at Jeopardy board (Bergeron TV Screen shot.)

On Thursday evening, Terry O’Shea, a graduate of Bridgewater-Raritan High School, and currently a student at Princeton University won $17,200 on Alex Trebek’s popular TV show, Jeopardy.

O’Shea outscored two other competitors in the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions this week, where her winning score qualified her to advance to the semifinals in which she will compete again next Tuesday at 7:00 p.m., on ABC TV.

Last winter, I remember observing Terry O’Shea at the John F. Kennedy Primary School on the evening of March 11, 2014.  There, she appeared informally as a guest of the Bridgewater-Raritan school board shortly after she had won $100,000 in February on Jeopardy.

Answer:  " What is Hokkaido and Honshu?"

She was every bit as genuine and unassuming that evening in Raritan as she is when she competes in Jeopardy, the very popular TV show beamed into the homes of millions
.
It was a treat to have seen her in person.

Hayek Appointed Schools Chief for Bridgewater-Raritan

Hayek addresses the BR-BOE after his appointment.

Tonight, at a meeting of the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education, Victor P. Hayek, presently “Superintendent of Schools for the Pequannock Township School District” was appointed as the new schools chief for the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District.

 

His contract with the BR-BOE runs from September 1, 2014 through June 30, 2018, at a starting annual base salary of $171,279, together with the full range of benefits that accompanies this position.  Signed this evening, the contract provides for his base pay to increase to $177,500 in the last year of his term.  According to state law, his salary is capped.

Bridgewater Bits & Pieces

Theft in Our Neighborhoods: The Bridgewater Township Police Department is advising township residents of “an increase in evening car burglaries.” It seems that some not so neighborly people are roaming Bridgewater streets after dark when all is quiet, looking for unlocked cars.

You can guess the rest: According to police, “valuables left inside, including GPS units, cell phones, iPods, laptop computers, cameras and money,” are targets of choice. Be alert, because police also advise that these thefts are not restricted to any particular neighborhood.

An Increase in Flu Occurrences: The Superintendent of the Bridgewater-Raritan Schools announced on Friday that the first case of swine flu (H1N1) within the school district was diagnosed at the Eisenhower school. Additionally, Dr. Schilder reports, there has also been “an increase of confirmed cases of Type A influenza across the district.”

I’m not surprised: On Saturday, Priscille and I were scheduled to attend a dance recital for our two granddaughters. But it was not meant to be. The girls visited the doctor on Friday. He diagnosed their symptoms as the flu – not H1N1, and advised them to cancel their scheduled performances.

Although the disappointment of not performing on Saturday, after expending so much time, effort and money on preparation was a huge letdown, they are now recovering well.

This is Sport? Elsewhere, the Courier News reports that “a Bridgewater recreation coach has been indicted on a fourth-degree aggravated assault charge for punching a fan in the face.” I suppose that there, but for the grace of God go I. Still, it’s hard to fathom how civility seemingly continues to erode in so many spheres of our lives.

Woodbridge Group Lobbies for Bridgewater-Raritan School Budget

It’s a partisan, get-out-the-vote out sign just like dozens of others that you’ve seen in all types of other elections. But this one, sitting along Washington Valley Road in Bridgewater, has a particular distinction.

Its message is simple and clear: In big white letters against a blue background, the sign entreats Bridgewater and Raritan residents to “VOTE YES FOR EDUCATION!" The next lines, in smaller type read, “Tuesday, April 21, 2009 – Polls Open 2-9 PM.”

The last line, required by New Jersey Election Law as an identifier, is unreadable unless you stop, walk up to the sign, scooch down a bit and read the fine print: “Presidents’ Council of Woodbridge Township.” If you are curious, as I am, you might wonder why a group from one of our neighboring towns to the south is lobbying Bridgewater and Raritan voters.

It turns out that the tiny line on this sign has a key missing descriptor. According to the web site of the Woodbridge Township School District, the group promoting its plea is a PTO organization whose “purpose is to promote interest and understanding within the Woodbridge Township School District through the informed participation of parents.”

Fair enough. Would you folks mind, though, minding your own business and reserving your lobbying efforts for The Woodbridge School District?

B-R School Budget Rises as Enrollment Drops

On April 21st, Bridgewater and Raritan residents are scheduled to vote on the school budget. Unless changes are made, that budget will rise by $4.5 million to $133.3 million, a 3.5% increase.

The B-R Board of Education and its Administration may remind you that this is the lowest percent increase in seven years. What they may not emphasize is that the $4.5 million hike occurs as school enrollment has slowly and steadily decreased from 9,197 students in 2006 to an expected 9,128 students in the fall of 2009.

Meanwhile, other governmental entities are also struggling with budgets – at least one with better results. The Somerset County freeholders are decreasing spending by 2.6%, from $220.2 million last year, to a proposed $214.4 million – no increase in your taxes from this source. In Bridgewater, the Mayor and the Township Council anticipate a drop in state aid of $327,154, a 4% decline from last year. Raritan will see its aid drop by $21,352.

Out of 40 school districts in Somerset and Hunterdon counties, only one in four is seeing any increase at all. The B-R School District is one of the lucky few to receive a $573,141 (5%) increase, for a total of $12 million, or 9% of next year’s budget. How would you like to have someone pay 9% of your annual expenses?

The money well in Trenton is drying up, and the B-R School District has done a less than stellar job of linking its budgets to the economic conditions that the rest of us have had to deal with each year and every day. The B-R School Board needs to envision its role much more holistically: It is merely one among other legitimate claimants to the resources of the residents of Bridgewater and Raritan.

The Inaugural, Sports, and Bridgewater-Raritan Schools

At last Tuesday’s session of the Bridgewater-Raritan School Board in Martinsville, there were two events associated with the recent national elections. The first was a special slide presentation by Joe Walsh, Principal of the John F. Kennedy School in Raritan Borough.

During that presentation before a full house, Mr. Walsh proudly scrolled through slides that depicted the result of all the hard work that he, his staff and students had accomplished in setting up and executing a mock convention in which JFK students were the participants. One student represented Barack Obama and another, John McCain. Obama carried the day by a margin of 121 to 82.

Great job! The kids were motivated and the project was a success.

The second event was somewhat different. Most parents had showed up Tuesday evening in support of school athletic programs. Parent after parent stood before the mike urging the Board and Administration not to cut any of those programs from the 2009/2010 budget. Just about every person who got up to speak that night received comments, clarification, and support or became engaged in Q&A with individual members of the Board or Administration.

One parent, Judith Lee, an African-American, and a 14-year resident of Bridgewater with a daughter in middle school and another at the high school also came to the mike. She addressed the Board and Administration, stating that she supported a full and complete education, including sports. However, she went on to explain that her daughters had missed an opportunity to hear and see the full swearing-in ceremony for President Barack Obama, an historic first.

Her expectation was that the ceremonies would have been made fully available on school facilities to Bridgewater-Raritan students on inauguration day.

Lee calmly and deliberately went on to explain, “I was very upset that my daughters had not seen the inauguration.” Had she known that this might have been the case, the mother continued, “I would have kept my daughters home that day.” Finished with her comments, Lee returned to her chair, followed by silence from every one of the officials sitting at the conference room table. No follow-up questions. No clarifications. No comments. Nothing.

Full House at the Wade Building

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.

Closing the Books on 2008

Monday’s editorial in the Courier News underscored the idea that the fiscal discipline which consumers have begun to show in the recent holiday shopping season is a trait that should be emulated at all levels of government, from Washington, D.C., all the way down to Bridgewater.

I often wonder why it is that governments seem to become as addicted to spending as a crack addict is to cocaine. It looks like some public entities just don’t pay any attention to what is obvious to the average citizen – that, in times of economic distress, spending needs to be adjusted to income. Of course, if a governmental entity can simply adjust income upwards by increasing taxes, then what’s the problem?

So far, there isn’t any sign that public spending for 2009 – at least in a couple of areas – is going to abate. Certainly not at the Federal level, and, from preliminary indications, not at the local level either. In Bridgewater, where the preliminary Bridgewater-Raritan school budget has already been released, spending is assured of coming in at another record level.

Bridgewater’s Budgets

During my Thanksgiving holiday visit to Potomac, MD with family and friends, it was hard not to think of the fiscal and monetary debacle at the Federal and State levels and of its relationship to local expenditures here in Bridgewater. Soon, we are going to find out how reduced state support and spending patterns of the past may come to haunt us in municipal and school tax increases.

BRIDGEWATER-RARITAN SCHOOL DISTRICT. No numbers have yet been released, but a board committee and administrators have put a ‘preliminary’ budget together and already have a good idea of the magnitude of next year’s school budget.

On December 16th, the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education will have its first public review of the 2009-2010 budget at the Wade Building in Martinsville at 8:00 pm. I doubt that Bridgewater and Raritan will be presented with a zero-based, hold-the-line proposal. But we can dream.

Thoughts for the Board: If you present an increase in the budget, please don’t tell the public that it’s for the kids. Worse, don’t use the worn-out rationale that the largest percentage of the budget is for salaries and that, therefore, there is nothing you can do about it because that’s a fixed cost. Remember, you are the same board that, on a wintry December 2007 evening, voted without meaningful debate for a 12.8% three-year wage package hike.

BRIDGEWATER TOWNSHIP. What surprised me about the status of the municipal budget came in today’s Courier-News editorial suggesting that there may not be sufficient involvement in budget development between the mayor’s office and the council. In the past, there was a long history of a sometimes adversarial relationship between former Democrat Mayor James Dowden and the Republican Township Council.

But what would be the excuse for anything but an ongoing and transparent working relationship between Mayor Flannery and the Township Council? Township management is now 100% under Republican control. Both the Major’s office and the Council should be working closely to develop Bridgewater’s budget. These are dreadful economic times demanding nothing less.

SUMMARY. I’m very concerned that both our municipal and school elected officials recognize the enormous power of taxation at their fingertips, yet may not admit that this deflating economic situation requires strong measures to keep one of the country’s highest real estate taxes under control. We can’t keep expecting that major corporate headquarters, national retail outlets, and other businesses located in Bridgewater and Raritan will keep acting as a counter-weight to our over-taxed communities.

One of the ironies in this process is that steep national and local declines in newspaper circulation have so savaged newsroom personnel that the dedicated, on-site reporter doing meeting-to-meeting coverage has had to take a back seat to the economic realities of the newspaper business. We all pay for that with less information and, therefore, with less influence.

Bridgewater-Raritan’s Everyday Math Program

What is the answer to seven times seven? Quickly! You may know the correct result, but does your elementary school child enrolled in the Bridgewater-Raritan school district know? That, in a nutshell, is the educational controversy which is now swirling about in this school district.

Two weeks ago today, I attended a work session of the B-R Board of Education at which there was a special presentation and discussion of Everyday Math. The basis for the Board’s lengthy discussion was a quarter-inch thick report on double-sided paper. The report summarized the completed work of a 9-member Everyday Math (EDM) Committee, all educators except two parents from the B-R School District.

Outcome: A written response by Superindent Michael Schilder which, among other points, recommends that he “. . . direct a sub-committee of the Five-Year K4 Mathematics Program Evaluation Committee to review mathematics programs other than Everyday Math for consideration of adoption.”

The preceding quote is a mouthful, but it simply means that another committee (no parents this time) will be charged with reviewing EDM and other Math programs further. By February, 2009, the new committee is to come up with potential alternatives that may replace EDM – note the conditionality and ambiguity of this sentence.

The ensuing discussion among board members, the superintendent and his assistant superintendent, Cheryl Dyer was lively and controversial. There is no unanimity of agreement on the status of EDM between the B-R BOE and the administration.

My concern is that the September 9, 2008, meeting of the B-R BOE was a work session. No formal board action can legally take place at such a meeting unless it is specifically placed on the agenda and identified as an item on which “action may be taken.” That means a formal resolution, published on an agenda, in advance under the Open Public Meetings act, presented to the board, discussed by board members, and opened to the public for comment before the board votes on it.

No such item appeared on the agenda of the September 9th meeting with respect to action to be taken on EDM. The agenda item listed was to be for discussion only. The significance of this is that the sub-committee referred to in Dr. Schilder’s recommendation may already be a done deal, without formal board action having been taken.

At the end of the Tuesday, September 9th meeting, the B-R BOE did not fully concur with Dr. Schilder’s sub-committee proposal. There was very strong opposition to the formation of such a committee by at least several members of the board. Even more seemed to be opposed to the EDM program, but wished to let the sub-committee go forward. Very confusing! That’s why the B-R BOE needs to place this item on its agenda for a regular board meeting and schedule it for an up or down vote as to whether or not to proceed with the Superintendent’s recommendation for another committee.

This clearly is a policy matter, one of the few issues for which a board of education has direct oversight responsibilities. Additionally, preparation of a board agenda is one of the other few items over which a school board president – Cynthia Cullen in this case – has direct accountability.

If this is not done, the sub-committee will be formed, move ahead with its work and will issue a report in mid-February, 2009, just in time to start up another April school election controversy!

Let’s Roll!

Early Wednesday morning, school buses of the Bridgewater-Raritan School District, as well as those of its contractors will roll out of their garages and parking lots and head to their first pickup location. They will then crisscross the Township and the Borough, loading up with a first-day-of-school cargo of students. On Garretson Road, upper classmen who have coveted passes for high school parking will be pulling into the lots in private cars.

It’s going to be a particularly critical time to be alert, especially after a summer of driving in Bridgewater and Raritan with those big yellow buses off the road. Bus drivers are well-trained and know what they are doing. Many of those who work directly for the district have a long history of solid experience, know safety well, and are as familiar with Bridgewater and Raritan roads as they are with the back of their hands.

Unfortunately, they are also only too familiar with the few – but very dangerous drivers – whose passion for speed and for bending the rules of the road could result in an accident. When you see the flashing lights of a bus as it slows down for a stop, don’t give in to the urge to quickly pass it by. There are plenty of kids in this district, but none to spare.



The Educational Services Commission of Somerset County, which covers an even larger geographic area, will also have its vans and buses out on the road transporting kids, so it would be a good idea for everybody involved to have an extra amount of patience in the next two weeks.

Parents, Students, and Bridgewater-Raritan Busing

On Wednesday, September 3rd, thousands of Bridgewater and Raritan kids will be outside awaiting the arrival of buses that will shepherd them to their schools for the first day of the 2008-2009 school year. For some young ones and their anxious moms, it will also be the first time that they are separated from the nest.

On Commons Way, in a small office next to the Transportation and Maintenance garage, there is a dedicated staff of four people who have spent much of their time since school closed in June, gathering information about your kids and entering it into a sophisticated computer queuing program that matches up all of the information to place your children on the right bus, at the right time. The results are reviewed for accuracy.

For the most part, given the complexity and logistics of matching up individual bus capacity and most efficient routing with specific students, time, pick-up location, and specific school destination, the process should proceed smoothly.

However, be prepared for glitches. They do happen. Most of the time, they are minor. Sometimes, but rarely, they are not. Either way, you can expect that the phone lines into the Bridgewater-Raritan Schools Transportation Department will be jammed for at least a week or two.

If something doesn’t go quite right for your kids and you need to make contact with your school and the transportation department, here’s some advice that is virtually guaranteed to get you a better outcome: More bees are attracted with a little honey; none with vinegar.

Free Community WiFi

Tom Perry, a popular columnist for the Courier News back when newspapers enjoyed higher circulation, was fond of saying that he was an inveterate newspaper junkie. He once wrote that when on vacation, he would always pick up a copy of the local paper to get a feel for the people and customs of the area.

I like to do the same. That’s how I came across a noteworthy story of how the City of Nashua, N.H. deployed a free, extensive WiFi network, one which blankets the downtown area with seamless and reliable Internet service.

Nashua’s wireless network was designed and deployed under the initiative of the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce, which worked with the support of a prominent consortium of area businesses and a California firm. John T. Barker, IT Director for the City of Nashua, directed much of the technical aspects of the project, working strictly as an unpaid volunteer, contributing, he says, approximately 100 hours of his time. The project was completed for about $40,000. Project bids exceeding $100,000 were thrown out.

We in Central Jersey can learn from this example: The patrons of businesses in downtown Somerville would benefit enormously from the provisioning of a free WiFi network which doesn’t break the bank.

Bridgewater Township, which has no central business area, could prod management of the Bridgewater Commons Mall to establish a free WiFi network to cover the entire Mall area. Similarly, such a network could be made available for public use in the Township’s new, showcase Municipal Building Complex, where space could be set aside for public use.

Even the Bridgewater-Raritan school district should consider opening up the nearby high school on Garretson Road for free public internet access: The school library, located just to the left of the main entrance is a perfect spot for such public use.

We all have the same DNA. Yet, as I travel about, I am always struck as I observe the number and diversity of communities outside of New Jersey which seem to be squeezing so much more out of a dollar than we in Central Jersey seem to have the will to do.


Note: According to Wikipedia, “Nashua was twice named ‘Best Place to Live in America’ in annual surveys by Money magazine. It is the only city to get the No. 1 ranking two times—in 1987 and 1997.”

Your Influence is Most Wanted

The Courier News ran a recent survey on its web site, seeking responses to the following question: Do you plan to vote in Tuesday’s [school] election? When I last checked the results, the replies were as follows: 45.3% of the respondents said they would vote; 27.8% said they would not; and, not surprisingly, 26.9% said, “There’s an election Tuesday?”

What a bummer! In the aggregate, more than half of all respondents either won’t vote or don’t even know there’s an election. I forgot to jot down the total number of people who provided their answers, but I remember it as being fairly high for this type of informal poll. Even more importantly, users of the web in this area, I am happy to assume, are fairly informed and intelligent. Don’t show me up to be wrong!

Why then are you not voting in greater numbers? I won’t talk down to you on that one, because you are much too smart for that.

Therefore, for the constituency that I am the most immediately interested in, the voting population of Bridgewater and Raritan, please get out to the polls tomorrow and do what most of the rest of the people on this planet would give their right arm (and more!) to be able to do.

Evan Lerner, Dr. Arvind Mathur and Al Smith (Raritan’s representative), would, I am sure, like to see you place your check mark next to their names. The school budget is the big issue. It’s $128.8 million dollars, and rising. It consumes by far the biggest percentage of your real estate tax bill. The Board of Education and its administration have been doing what they know to do to get out the vote. So why not make yourselves feel good and stop by your polling place tomorrow, Tuesday, April 15, 2008, between seven in the AM and nine in the PM, and cast your vote?

Still the Best Baseball Rivalry!

Baseball or Politics? Did a construction worker-Red Sox fan really bury a Sox T-shirt in the poured concrete of the new Yankee Stadium? What a sacrilege! No matter, though. Unless you are hopelessly superstitious, it won’t have any impact on the outcome of what I still consider to be the best matchup in baseball.

Tonight at 8 o’clock, if you are a baseball fan, you’ll be watching these two teams slug it out inthe rubber-match conclusion of a three-game series at Fenway Park. And, if you are not such a fan … well, you might as well watch it anyway. Otherwise, one of your only other TV alternatives is to click to CNN and suffer along with two presidential candidates, as they slug it out in a two-hour program billed, Faith and Politics, The Compassion Forum.

If you choose the latter option, you’ll get a lot of politics and a lot of posturing about faith, but I honestly doubt that much of it will be accurate or meaningful. I hope I’m proven wrong about that. Nonetheless, best to put the CNN slugfest on the VCR for subsequent viewing.

Friday night’s 4-1 Yankees’ win over the Sox featured stellar pitching by Chien-Ming Wang, the go-to guy for jump-starting this rivalry in unfriendly territory. Saturday afternoon, though, Jonathan Papelbon, Boston’s super-focused star reliever, returned the favor by striking out A-Rod and putting away the rest of the line-up in the top of the ninth inning, after a dramatic, lightning-punctured 2-hour-11-minute rain delay. Manny Ramirez and Kevin Youkilis took care of producing RBIs for the Sox, garnering a 4-3 win.

I’m a Red Sox fan, but I don’t hate the Yankees – I stopped that nonsense awhile ago. I’ve since come to respect the power of the Bronx Bombers, while rooting for the Sox. It’s better that way.

Tuesday’s School Elections: A critical Bridgewater-Raritan schools election is scheduled for this Tuesday, April 15th. Three incumbents, Evan Lerner, Dr. Arvind Mathur, and Al Smith (Raritan’s representative) are running unopposed this year. Ho hum! Nonetheless, there is a monster budget on the ballot for your approval or disapproval. That last one is anything but a trivial matter. So go ahead and get out there with your vote. It really does matter. The polls will be open from 7 AM to 9 PM.

Tamping Down N. J. School Costs

Sometimes, it takes a little perspective coming from a different place to get a better view of how things are in your own neck of the woods.

"The News-Press," a Fort Myers, Florida newspaper which covers Lee County, had a front-page story on March 26, about the financial condition of that county-wide school district. The county includes Cape Coral and tony places such as Sanibel Island. For its 2008-2009 school year, the county is proposing a $1.5 billion budget, of which $700 million is for operating expenses.

Because of economic conditions in Florida, Lee County School District faces a cut of $30 million in state aid. Therefore, the district is considering cuts of $3.76M in personnel and $3.83M in other reductions. Even the Collier County School District, which includes poshy Naples, Florida, is facing a proposed $8 million cut, according to The Naples Daily News. The newspaper indicates that the causal factor is a predicted "general revenue shortfall of more than $2 billion" at the state level.

So, while states like Florida are cutting back on school subsidies because of reduced state tax revenues, New Jersey continues to dole out cash which it doesn't have, while proposing to sell off a large chunk of New Jersey's asset base to give out even more Monopoly money. Simultaneously, New Jersey places no serious limits on the extent to which its school districts can continue to increase real estate taxes.

I'm not arguing for downgrading education in New Jersey -- but, when is enough, enough? How long, if ever, will it take for New Jersey, which has the highest education costs in the nation, to get serious about addressing the high expense of its school districts, and to place permanent, real, and enforceable limits on school tax increases?

Courier Columnists

The Courier News has several good paid columnists. One of those is the recent addition of Jay Jefferson Cooke, new to the newspaper’s staff.

I remember when, in the early 1990’s, Carol Hunter and her husband, Tom Perry, were a team on the C-N. Carol rose to the rank of editor (close enough, I can’t remember her exact title!), while Tom wrote columns. Those were hectic days, especially in Bridgewater and Raritan, where things got hot on the Board of Education. Today, when that happens, hardly anyone takes notice, because there is no continuous coverage of what goes on there – a place where most of the township’s and borough’s real estate tax dollars are spent.

Back then, both the Courier News and the Star Ledger (even the weekly Messenger-Gazette) had dedicated reporters attending just about every meeting. It’s a situation that kept the voting public and parents very informed. Now, the school board and administration hardly get any attention, because there is rarely anyone on the scene.

Tom Perry’s columns often referred to the goings-on in school affairs and in local politics. He was very good at it. He named names and got his facts right. He was a straight-shooting columnist who felt responsible for what he wrote and was generally respected by his readers.

Jay Jefferson Cooke’s columns are more personal, and very different in style from those of Tom Perry, but both guys (ditto for Michael Riley) share the same quality of good writing which comes from the heart, the gut and the intelligence. That doesn’t mean that a person always will agree with such a writer. But it usually assures that the reader will be drawn to what such people write and will give the topic some consideration.

I missed Tom’s columns after his departure. Although Cooke's subject matter is somewhat different, he helps to pick up the slack.

Bridgewater-Raritan Passes ‘Tentative’ 2008-2009 School Budget

Debate or Budget Meeting? I had a choice tonight: Stay at home to watch the Clinton-Obama debate, or drive to the Wade Building in Martinsville to see how the Bridgewater-Raritan School Board and Administration would deal with the preliminary 2008-2009 school budget. Once such a budget is adopted, I’ve never known one to change before being presented to the voters in the April election.

Given the obfuscations of both national candidates in the TV debate, which I painfully watched for a few minutes upon returning home, I think I made the right move in deciding to go to the Wade building.

Here’s the recap: A general fund budget of $128.8 million was adopted for the next school year. That represents a $4.9 million increase (4%) over last year’s number.

The impact is that, if finally adopted as presented, the new budget will result in a real estate school tax increase of $141.81 for Bridgewater Township homeowners on a house with a $450,000 assessment. Raritan Borough homeowners would see an increase of $141.83 on a house assessed at $350,000. (These assessed values are said to represent averages in each community.)

This year, the Bridgewater-Raritan School District received a total of $12.1 million in State Aid, up by 24.9% from last year’s $9.7 million. You need to know that $2.4 million of this year’s total state aid was part of Governor Corzine’s 11th hour distribution of extra money to school districts throughout New Jersey. Without such assistance, Bridgewater-Raritan’s proposed budget of $128.8 million would produce a significantly higher local real estate tax.

The best fiscal surprise of the night, though, is what the Board of Education decided to do with that $2.4 million in extra state aid which drifted down like manna from the Corzine Administration. Those funds were awarded to the school district without spending limitations: In my opinion, a dangerous move.

However, bowing to much better judgment and to the spirit of the times, the Board and Administration decided to return $1.5 million to Bridgewater-Raritan taxpayers for direct tax relief. A very, very good move!

The remaining $.9 million of extra state aid will be used for facilities improvements at the middle school (largely for paving the parking lot), curriculum improvements, and to cover an increase in the District’s obligation to the Public Employees Retirement System.

New Schools' Web Site

The Bridgewater-Raritan School District recently released a new version of its web site. The redesigned home page, which is the key to all of the improvements, provides a dramatically different look and feel to navigating about the various areas of interest.

The major improvement is in the nature of the menu bar at the top of the home page. In many other web sites, the home page and its menu disappear once a person has drilled down to the desired topic. Not so, here. As you click on your chosen topic, the original menu bar remains visible. This allows you to change subjects easily, quickly and effectively.

The Bridgewater-Raritan Schools’ home page menu bar displays the following eight all-encompassing topics: District (General); Budget; Curriculum; Departments; Schools; Superintendent‘s News; BOE (Board of Education); and Community. Just pass your computer’s cursor over any one of these topics, and a pull-down menu will appear, providing you with many more choices.

If you’d like, try it out at www.brrsd.k12.nj.us/index.cfm

Bridgewater-Raritan School Tax Assessment Shifts Unfavorably for Raritan

In 2007, at the request of Mayor Jo-Ann Liptak, the President of the Bridgewater-Raritan School Board, Al Smith, appeared before the Raritan Borough Council. He came to field questions about why this regional school district experienced a shift of over $900,000 in tax levies from Bridgewater to Raritan in the last two budget periods.

Mr. Smith, who is Raritan’s sole elected representative on the BR-BOE, explained that the school board had absolutely no control over that number. He is correct in that the expense allocation charged individually to Bridgewater and to Raritan taxpayers is set by a formula established by the State of New Jersey. It produces a ratio based upon the separate ratables of each municipality.

In past years, that ratio has shifted between Bridgewater and Raritan, sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot. In some periods, Bridgewater has taken the greater hit. Recently, Raritan is getting whacked. There is absolutely no sense to that formula. Reason? It’s based on ratables and, for those of us who have been here long enough to remember, New Jersey passed an income tax in 1976, precisely because real estate taxes had grown too burdensome to carry the load.

The bottom line is this: The Bridgewater-Raritan School District is one of the most privileged in New Jersey, yet its budget continues to grow each year at the maximum allowed state cap. Were it not for that state-imposed limit, the budget would be even higher, as would your tax bill.

Bridgewater has been debatably fortunate because of its particularly large base of commercial tax ratables. Raritan has not had the same benefit. But just introduce disproportionate real estate growth into the Borough and what happens? It gets kicked in the teeth. (Additionally, Raritan’s ratables are affected by a 2006 reevaluation.)

“Plus que ça change, plus que c’est la même chose.” That’s French for “The more things change, the more they are the same.”


Note: 1. On Wednesday, January 16, at 9:00 AM, there will be a presentation of the 2008-2009 school budget at the Wade Administration building on Newmans Lane in Martinsville.

2. The Bridgewater-Raritan Schools web site is at http://www.brrsd.k12.nj.us/ . Al Smith’s letter-to-the-editor on this topic appeared December 25, 2007 in the Courier News.