PACKET EDITORIAL, May 10
By: Packet Editorial, May 10
The Montgomery Township Committee has nine more days to extricate itself from a most unenviable position between a rock and a hard place.
The rock is what Montgomery voters tossed no, make that heaved at the local Board of Education, knocking down the proposed 2005-2006 school budget by a decisive 2-1 margin. The hard place is finding room in that $67.9 million budget to cut spending without lowering the quality of education in one of New Jersey’s highest-achieving districts.
Under the state’s Byzantine school election laws, any school budget defeated by voters is subject to review by the municipal governing body. The governing body may choose, despite the budget’s rejection by the voters, to leave it untouched an approach that is generally not recommended for any elected municipal official who might some day contemplate re-election. So most governing bodies, especially those reviewing budgets that have been defeated by a margin of more than a few votes, make at least a token cut or two from the spending plan a couple of teaching positions, perhaps, or even an administrative one and send the redacted budget back to the school board.
The board then has a choice. It can accept the cuts made by the governing body, and figure out how it’s going to live within its slightly diminished means, or it can appeal the cuts to the state commissioner of education. If the commissioner finds that the cuts will reduce the district’s ability to provide the thorough and efficient system of free public schools guaranteed by the state constitution, the commissioner may order the money restored to the budget rendering its rejection by the voters utterly meaningless.
So no matter what the Montgomery Township Committee does, it will be second-guessed and, we’re fairly certain, roundly criticized. Opponents of the budget showed up in droves at the polls on April 19, and plainly expect the Township Committee to carry out their mandate over the next nine days. But supporters of the budget showed up in force at last week’s Township Committee meeting, during which the procedure for reviewing the defeated budget was discussed, and implored the governing body to leave the spending plan untouched.
The Township Committee appears to be conducting its budget review in a manner that is both thorough and bipartisan. Democrat John Warms and Republican Mark Caliguire are representing the governing body in its deliberations with the school board, and they are reportedly examining the school spending plan line by line, looking for any and all items that may be trimmed without doing undue damage to the district’s educational offerings.
But when Mr. Warms, Mr. Caliguire and their colleagues get to the bottom line on the May 19 deadline, we fear they will satisfy no one. Any cuts they make will surely not be large enough to pacify those residents whose dropped jaws have not yet rebounded from the $1,000 increases they face in their property taxes to support the township schools. And if they do make the kind of cuts that would actually put a real dent in that number, they will do more than arouse the ire of the outspoken residents who came to last week’s meeting. They will also, in all probability, give the commissioner of education all the justification he needs to restore some or all of the money to the budget on appeal.
All of which suggests that both sides in this dispute which appears to have lost none of its bitterness in the aftermath of the April 19 vote need to brace themselves for disappointment. They need to recognize that the Township Committee is engaged in an impossible task occasioned by an irrational state law that established a preposterous procedure for striking local school budgets. We hope we’re not alone in expressing confidence that, under these extremely trying circumstances, Montgomery’s governing body is doing the best it can.

