School board adopts $26M spending plan

Millstone school budget, which includes a 5.8-cent tax rate increase, goes before voters on April 19.

By: Lauren Burgoon
   MILLSTONE — Only a handful of people were in attendance last week when the school board adopted a final $26.2 million budget that Superintendent William Setaro called only slightly more than a bare-bones spending plan.
   "This isn’t truly a maintenance budget but it’s extremely close because of the constraints we’re under" including state-mandated caps this year, Dr. Setaro said.
   Despite the caps and wanting to keep the tax impact down, Millstone continues to improve academically and offers its students innovative programs, Dr. Setaro added.
   "There is one thing to remember and that is that this district’s focus is on education. If that isn’t our goal, I don’t know what our goal should be," he said.
   The budget now goes before voters on April 19. The package, adopted unanimously by the school board, features a 5.8-cent tax rate increase. If approved by voters, the general fund tax rate will stand at about $1.53 per $100 of assessed property value.
   Millstone’s overall school tax rate also includes debt payments. Voters already approved the debt in the March 2004 referendum so this tax impact will go unchanged even if the budget fails. The debt service tax impact is 24 cents per $100 of assessed value. When the general fund and debt service tax rates are combined, the total school tax rate comes to about $1.77 per $100 of assessed value, or $6,998 in school taxes for a resident with a home assessed at the township average of $395,400.
   The district’s budget increased about 9 percent over last year, mostly because of increased tuition costs to Allentown High School. Upper Freehold’s cost per pupil is going up next year and Millstone has 50 more freshmen going to AHS next year than it has graduating seniors now.
   The spending plan includes new personnel in both schools and the district, as well as increasing some existing employees’ hours. It also includes money to purchase two new buses and hire bus drivers. District officials said only about 9 percent of the budget include discretionary funding.
   "I think we’ve done a good job holding the budget line items we have control over to the same as last year or even less," Dr. Setaro said.