School budget talksrepresent welcome change

EDITORIAL

   A warm wind blew through the municipal courtroom last week when the Township Committee members spoke with one voice on how to approach their pending review of the defeated $56.9 million school budget.
   At their first meeting since the April 15 school election, the members present discussed the budget in calm and concerned tones seldom heard in the courtroom this year.
   Missing was the cold bickering that has come to dominate committee meetings as the members rose to tackle one of the most difficult challenges they’re likely to face.
   Though still knee deep in trying to find ways to trim the municipal budget, the troika of Republican committee members wielding voting control now has the added task of identifying cuts in a budget four times their own.
   But the municipal and school budgets share a feature that makes fast and easy spending cuts difficult: most of the spending is already committed to salaries and benefits that can’t simply be slashed.
   So, the committee members agreed to focus on working with the school board to try to identify savings in the neighborhood of $300,000 to $400,000.
   We think the two bodies will be able to accomplish this goal, and we hope it can be done without too much anguish for local residents.
   No one wants to see a rehash of last year’s budget cuts, which reduced the school budget by $1.23 million. About half of that amount was in the ill-fated artificial turf field, but the remaining $600,000 took up almost all of the budget’s remaining slack.
   The school board chose to cut in the one area identified as a potential area for savings in a recent state audit, courtesy busing, which proved very problematic for the board.
   We know some in the community held hopes of seeing the committee wield an axe on the budget rather than a filet knife, but we don’t see evidence there is much to be cut without changing the meaning of education in Hillsborough.
   Hillsborough spends about 8 percent less than the average school district in New Jersey per pupil for instruction, but 20 to 30 percent less for administration costs, maintenance of facilities and employee benefits. This means the budget is tight — a fact born out by the 2001 audit, which failed to reveal a single item to recommend cutting.
   So we applaud the committee’s sensible — and unified — approach to the school budget.
   And we look forward to seeing more actions undertaken with a sense of the value each has to offer to the committee in the coming months.