Budget approved by a margin of 750 votes.
By: Leon Tovey
MONROE Despite strong opposition from Monroe’s senior communities, township voters on Tuesday approved the school board’s proposed 2005-06 budget by 750 votes, the widest margin in recent years.
Voters approved the $69.9 million spending plan which will draw $53.15 million from taxes 2,802 to 2,052. The budget carries a 2.96 percent hike in the school tax rate, from $1.734 per $100 of assessed valuation to $1.785. Under that rate, the owner of a house assessed at the township average of $160,100 will pay $2,857.79 in school taxes, up $78.72.
Voters also elected the three incumbent board members Joe Homoki, Kathy Kolupanowich and Kathy Leonard to three-year terms. The three ran unopposed.
Superintendent Ralph Ferrie said Tuesday night that he was "very pleased" with the show of voter support.
"I told Wayne (Holliday, school business administrator) last night we needed 2,800 votes to win," Dr. Ferrie told a crowd of joyous PTO members at township hall after the results were announced. "I’d just like to thank all of you for your hard work and the community for all of its support."
While the budget was approved overwhelmingly at seven of the township’s 12 polling stations, it was defeated at the five stations located in the township’s five oldest planned retirement communities: Rossmoor, Concordia, Clearbrook, Greenbriar at Whittingham and the Ponds.
Resident of the township’s two newer PRCs, Encore and Regency at Monroe, voted at Applegarth Middle School and Brookside Elementary School, respectively. The budget was approved at Applegarth 203 to 107 and at Brookside 542 to 188.
Senior community voters were largely responsible for the defeat of last year’s proposed $62.8 million budget, with 61.7 percent voting against the plan. The Township Council later cut $500,000 from the budget.
Residents of the senior communities interviewed by The Cranbury Press Tuesday who said they voted against the budget cited concerns about increased taxes and too much money being spent on administrative costs.
"Teachers should be paid more, kids should have more spent on them," said Joe Saloman of Encore, who voted against the budget. "When I went to school, there was one principal. Now you’ve got all kinds of vice principals and other administrators why is that necessary?"
Degna Johnson of Rossmoor was even more blunt.
"I don’t think they should raise our taxes period," she said.
But another Rossmoor resident, August Criscito, said he voted for the budget even though his children and grandchildren are all long out of school out of a sense of a civic and social duty.
"Anything for the kids," he said. "The school board did a good job keeping the budget down and if we vote against the kids, maybe their parents’ll vote against us."
Opposition to the budget was not limited to the senior communities. Sandy Goshorn, a resident of northeast Monroe, was among 106 residents who voted against the budget at the Community Center.
"I don’t think that they’re using their money appropriately and I think they can find their money elsewhere," Ms. Goshorn said.
But among the 350 Community Center voters who apparently disagreed with Ms. Goshorn were husband and wife Lindsay and Linda Malmstadt of Monmouth Road, who said they voted for the budget.
The Malmstadts, who have a daughter in Mill Lake Elementary School said they voted for the budget last year as well and that they felt this year’s budget could have been even bigger.
"It’s a very lean budget," Ms. Malmstadt said of the 2005-06 budget. "They really didn’t cover enough of what the schools need."
Lloyd and Debbie Wallace also voted yes on the budget.
"We think the schools here are great," Ms. Wallace said Tuesday afternoon at the Monmouth Road First Aid building.
"And we’d like to keep them that way," her husband added, noting that their granddaughter, who lives with them, is a student at Mill Lake School. "You have to consider: If the schools are shot, the whole neighborhood’s going to go with them."

