Construction proposal goes to voters Tues.
Spotswood asks voters their say on $19M
in improvements,
additions
By vincent todaro
Staff Writer
Residents will cast their votes Tuesday on a much-debated $19.4 million referendum to provide additions and improvements at all Spotswood public schools.
If approved next week, the cost of the project will be shared by the state, which will pay $5 million. Spotswood taxpayers would pay the balance, which would result in an increase of $400 in the annual school taxes paid by the owner of property assessed at $70,500 for the next 20 years.
The project has been proposed by the Board of Education and a Strategic Planning Committee, in part, because the district’s aging and overcrowded schools are expected to receive another 375 students from the borough, as well as from Milltown, which sends its high school students to Spotswood, and from Helmetta, which sends all of its students to Spotswood.
Major additions and improvements are proposed at Spotswood High School and at the Memorial and Schoenly schools.
Additionally, the Appleby School would receive remodeling and renovations, and a new 800-square-foot storage room. The referendum would also allow for parking-lot improvements at the schools.
The district would be reconfigured so that the Memorial School would house grade six instead of the Appleby School, which would then house second through fifth grades. The fifth-grade classes presently housed in trailers at Appleby could then be moved back inside the building.
Some local politicians are complaining that the referendum would fall disproportionately on taxpayers in Spotswood.
Officials in Spotswood said they are concerned that the referendum would allow Milltown and Helmetta to use the new and improved facilities without having to contribute toward their cost.
According to Spotswood Councilwoman Judith Ruffo, who is the liaison to the Board of Education, the sending districts are not mandated by law to pay any of the costs involved with the referendum. In addition, it is illegal for Spotswood to increase the tuition it charges Helmetta and Milltown to compensate for those costs.
"We could ask them for assistance [in paying the referendum], but they are not mandated," she said. "They would have to go out to the voters."
While it would help to pay interest on the loans associated with the project, it would not have to help pay any of the principal, according to Barbara Raczynski, Board of Education president in Helmetta. She said that because the sending districts will not actually own any of the new facilities, they should not be required to pay for them.
"We rent education from Spotswood," she said. "They want us to continue but to pay for it even though we don’t own it.
"If we paid and our send-and-receive relationship ends, what portion of our collateral do we take back?," she asked.
The sending districts pay about $10,500 a year for each high school student they send to Spotswood. Helmetta pays between $5,000 and $7,500 for each elementary- and middle-school student it sends to Spotswood. Costs for special education students are significantly higher.
In addition to tuition, the sending districts also pay annual maintenance costs, as well as extra resources, Raczynski said.
"Anything additional we use other than classrooms, we pay for," she said. "If, for example, a third-grader needs extra resources, we pay for that."
"We very much do pay our fair share," she said. "We pay tuition and building use, and we pay our portion of interest on the principal."
Raczynski said she does not feel that Helmetta should have to pay extra just because it would be using the new and improved facilities; therefore, it would not offer to pay additional money toward the project.
Through their school taxes, residents in Spotswood pay for all the same costs — including salaries, maintenance, textbooks and building costs — that residents in Milltown and Helmetta pay through tuition and building costs. The only difference is that Spotswood residents are also being asked to pay for the construction project.
Another point of contention among the school districts is representation on the Spotswood Board of Education. Though Helmetta has its own school board, it only gets a voting member on the Spotswood board every other year. The same is true for Milltown.
"We want a permanent member on the board. We want a member to vote every year," Raczynski said. "I want all of the children represented all of the time."
Because it only has a six-member board, Spotswood is not required to have both sending districts represented each year. Under state law, if it had more than six members, it would have to allow Milltown and Helmetta each to have representation every year.
Ruffo said another problem with the referendum is that it assumes the sending districts will remain in Spotswood for awhile.
"What if the districts, in five or 10 years, decide to go elsewhere?" Ruffo asked. "We’re left with excess building and debt."
Raczynski acknowledged that Helmetta is considering a feasibility study to see if regionalization would be a less expensive way to educate its students.
Both Ruffo and Mayor Barry Zagnit said they cannot support the referendum, saying that while they realize the need exists to improve and add facilities, they believe the referendum asks too much of Spotswood’s taxpayers.
"I’m not anti-school or education," Zagnit has said. "We need to back a referendum, but not this referendum."
Responding to those who do not support the referendum, Spotswood Superintendent of Schools Anthony Vaz said they should realize that additions and improvements are necessary, and the project will only be more expensive if the district waits longer.
"Things don’t go down, they go up," he said. "The costs associated could go up if we wait to do it."
He said it would only cost the district more money if it were to have the plans reworked, as there would be more legal, architectural and other costs.
He also said the $4.9 million in state funding may not be there in the future, and Spotswood may then have to foot the entire bill.
"Once voters have presented their will, it would be very hard for [state] politicians to turn it back," he said in response to those who have argued whether a freeze of state funding is possible.
"What would be scary is if there is a freeze and the referendum has not been approved," he said.

