Councils, board meet on cuts to defeated budget
Full-day kindergarten, other programs could
be at risk, Klavon says
According to school and municipal officials, the failure of this year’s school budget created a situation where no one is going to come out a winner.
The designated committees of the Aberdeen Township Council and the Matawan Borough Council met last week in conjunction with representatives of the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional Board of Education to discuss preliminary cuts to the defeated 2002-03 school budget.
The township and the borough have hired an auditor to make recommendations on potential cuts to the budget.
"We are not looking to be unrealistic here," said Matawan council President Debra Buragina. "We realize that the schools are working within a tight budget.
"But, at the same time, voters came out almost 2-to-1 against accepting this budget so we are obligated to really take a look at things," she added.
Voters defeated the proposed school budget tax levy April 16 by a 1,627 to 841 margin.
The $46.7 million budget included steep tax increases for both towns, 23.7 cents per $100 of assessed property value for Aberdeen residents, and 16.6 cents for Matawan residents.
"I think both committees are going to be looking at this on a fact-by-fact basis," said Aberdeen Councilman Thomas Perry.
Both Buragina and Perry said that the two municipal governing bodies wanted to minimize the number of cuts on student programs where possible.
Although the councils can recommend specific cuts to the school district, the final decision about what line items in the budget will eventually be cut ultimately lies with the school board.
However, the cuts must match up to the overall dollar amount that the councils decide can be cut from the budget. The deadline for finalizing cuts to the budget is May 20.
If the school board is dissatisfied with the size of the dollar cut, it can appeal to the commissioner of the state Department of Education to have some or all of the funding restored.
Before the councils even had their chance to look at this year’s school budget and identify potential areas for cuts, Schools Superintendent Michael Klavon went through the budget and came up with $1 million in cuts which would bring the budget under the state-imposed spending cap.
"Just to get to that cap, I’ve already recommended program cuts, all of which directly impact the children," said Klavon.
Full-day kindergarten, which the district instituted only five years ago, is at risk, as are the high school tennis teams and music program, among other things.
However, Klavon noted that the areas he identified for cuts are only recommendations, and that the school board has the final say over what stays in the budget and what goes.
According to the superintendent, the school district faced a particularly tough fiscal situation when developing this budget.
Klavon said that the state’s freeze on school aid to last year’s levels, coupled with soaring health and property insurance costs and a depleted surplus due to the purchase of trailers to house student overflow at Matawan Avenue Middle School, all collided to produce the budget crunch and large tax increases this year.
According to Klavon, large cuts to the budget would have "devastating impact" on the school district.
For every cent the tax rate goes down, approximately $127,000 would need to be cut from the school budget.
Because the full-day kindergarten program costs the district approximately $500,000 per year, it has been identified as a potential area for cuts.
However, Klavon said that cutting the program would have immense educational fallout in the long run in the district, risking the work the district is doing to try to shore up flagging test scores at the middle and high school levels
"The earlier you teach kids the fundamentals of reading and mathematics, the better they do down the road," he said.
Klavon noted that special needs school districts throughout the state have mandatory preschool and full-day kindergarten programs based on that theory.
"Getting rid of programs like that would really be to the long-term detriment of the schools," he added.
However, representatives from the councils said they were looking first to guidance from the district on cuts.
"What we did was say, ‘You have to live with this thing for a year, so you tell us what cuts can be made,’ " said Buragina.
"We told them they have to give us something. But we want to be very cautious about what programs are cut," she added.
"Unfortunately, there are some good things in there that we may have to take a serious look at," said Buragina, citing the all-day kindergarten program as an example.
She also said that the Matawan council is opposed to cuts in high school programs that keep older children active and help them get into college.
Perry said that the final decision about what to cut remains up to the school district.