Vo-tech tuition hike
put off for one year
By maura dowgin
Staff Writer
School districts have been spared the cost of a tuition hike for the Monmouth County Vocational School District for this year.
"The Monmouth County Board of Freeholders has agreed to provide additional funding to the vocational schools to cover the additional tuition for the shared-time students," said Monmouth County Administrator Louis Paparozzi.
The agreement only applies to the 2003-04 school year, Paparozzi said.
There are no promises that the districts will not have to pay for shared-time students in the future, said Brian D. McAndrew, superintendent of schools for the county vocational district.
"We need to get through this year and into next," McAndrew said.
Vocational school administrators are hoping the state and county aid will be increased next year, McAndrew said.
"State government needs to take action in the way we fund public education," he said.
McAndrew said the vocational school district’s sources for revenue are the county tax levy, state aid and tuition.
"In this case, the freeholders saw they don’t want to see the quality of the vocational school district suffer," the superintendent said.
McAndrew sent a letter Feb. 20 to every county school district that included the announcement of an additional tuition charge of $1,500 for each of the 850 to 950 shared-time [part-time] county students in regular vocational programs.
The Freehold Regional High School District, which would have had to find $487,500 to add to the 2003-04 budget if the tuition hike had to be paid by the districts, is very relieved the county is paying, said Superintendent of Schools James Wasser.
The increases "would have really significantly hurt our district," Wasser said.
Wasser said he wrote letters to all of the freeholders expressing his dissatisfaction with the decision to put the financial burden on the districts.
"I’m very happy they listened to our concern. It’s nice when you can write a letter and get a positive response back," the superintendent said.
He is also writing letters to state officials in the hope that they will change the formula for how much state aid is given to districts. The Freehold Regional High School District is growing rapidly and needs help from state aid, he said.
If the tuition increase had been adopted by the county vocational school district, Wasser said his district might have considered adding some vocational programming into the curriculum.
Upon hearing the news that the vocational school tuition hike would not be passed on to local districts, Hazlet Superintendent of Schools Renae LaPrete said, "I’m grateful because we had to look at items in the budget and readjust my budget by $78,000."
LaPrete said she will be meeting with the Board of Education to discuss its options for what to do with this money.
"In the future, no one wants an increase, but certainly give us enough time and give us information early on so we have time to prepare," LaPrete said.
Middletown Superintendent of Schools David Witmer said the additional tuition was not factored into the introduced budget because the notification was received late.
The additional tuition would have cost the district $150,000 to pay for the district’s 100 part-time vocational students, the superintendent said.
The board would have had to find some way to adjust the budget to find the $150,000 to pay for the students, Witmer said.
"We’re very pleased by this," Witmer said upon hearing that the tuition increase would not be passed on to local school districts.