Board asks for input on budget

As planning begins for next year,

school officials seek guidance
By:Donna Lukiw
   With six months until the vote on the 2006-2007 school budget, the Board of Education is hoping to get suggestions from residents on what items should be cut and what shouldn’t.
   During Monday’s Board of Education meeting, the public had an opportunity to express its concerns and make suggestions, but only one Hillsborough resident shared his views.
   "I propose a $150 million budget or cut out all extracurricular activities," Tim Jordan of Brokaw Court said. "Of course, I’m being facetious here. The problem with the next budget is going to be cutting programs and a lot of people are going to be upset."
   This year’s budget totaled $93.8 million, with $66.2 million raised in local taxes. The budget increased the tax rate from $1.762 per $100 assessed value to $1.837, a 4.28 percent increase.
   The board can’t cut some parts of the budget — such as teachers’ salaries (totaling $29,069,221 this year) and previous bonds and debts due to past referendums (totaling $6,679,899 this year).
   The $6,040,982 the district spent on special education is determined by state-required individual education plans of special-needs students.
   "Every classified student has an Individualized Educational Plan that specifies the level of services that the child needs," Assistant Superintendent of Business Tom Venanzi said. "It is binding on the district to provide these services so that would be the area where cuts could never be made in special education."
   But areas open to cutting include after-school programs —which totaled $201,877 in the 2005-2006 budget — or the $88,025 budgeted this year for new textbooks, musical instruments and art supplies, including seven new kilns.
   The district spent about $670,388 on technology maintenance including hardware, licensing, routine repairs classroom software and teacher supplies, this year.
   The district budgeted $1,365,255 for general administration salaries, supplies, legal services and other items; $3,098,409 school administration salaries and supplies; and $12,830,819 went to employee benefits.
   "We could say that our personnel are fixed if we want to maintain our program, and that will be a major discussion during the budget process," Mr. Venanzi said.
   He added the new school budget law known as S-1701 will make it increasingly difficult to maintain many programs because of spending increase limitations. The law limits spending increases to 2.5 percent in school budgets from one year and was designed to protect property taxpayers.
   This year, the school budget increased taxes $262 on a home assessed at $350,000.
   The Hillsborough school district’s Web site (www.hillsborough.k12.nj.us) will again have a link for residents to submit their suggestions and recommendations for the 2006-2007 school district budget.
   "I believe that this next budget will be difficult and that the failure of the recent referendum will make it even more difficult for this board to provide the type of facilities and program that we believe we need to provide for this community," board member Neil Hudes said.