Effort promised to cut spending from initial draft plan
By: Emily Craighead
An increase of less than 4 percent is anticipated for the 2006-2007 budget of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District, Board of Education President Hemant Marathe said Tuesday.
A rough draft of the budget puts the increase at 5 percent.
"The superintendent and I are very determined to move down from that number," Assistant Superintendent for Finance Larry Shanok said.
In any case, that increase must be lowered to meet the budget cap under the state law known as S-1701. That cap, calculated based on the Consumer Price Index, with adjustments for enrollment growth, transportation costs and other special areas, has not yet been released by the state.
"S-1701 is a very restrictive piece of legislation," Superintendent Robert Loretan said. "It doesn’t permit us to expand to the extent we, as professionals, think is warranted."
Other budget considerations include rising energy costs, growing technology infrastructure demands and special-services tuition costs. Although rising fuel costs place a strain on the budget, the greatest expenses to the district are staff salaries and health-care costs, according to Dr. Loretan.
"The uncertainties are greater than ever while the dilemmas are fairly standard," Mr. Shanok said.
The district’s budget projection is based on early evaluations of enrollment and staffing needs at the district’s 10 schools. Tuesday’s budget presentation focused on the high schools.
With incoming freshman classes slightly larger than exiting senior classes, enrollment could increase by about 68 students at High School North, and 26 students at High School South.
"Over the last five years, our class sizes have crept up as we schedule our buildings more tightly," said Michael Zapicchi, principal at North.
As a result, he has requested the equivalent of 2.6 additional full-time staff members. An additional 0.6 full-time equivalent is proposed for South. Positions could be shifted from elementary schools where enrollment is in decline. There are the equivalent of 85.5 teachers at North and 105.3 at South.
"We understand staffing is where the money is, so we don’t make these requests lightly," Mr. Zapicchi said.
According to Don Gilpin, a language-arts teacher at South, staffing at the high schools is inadequate.
"I don’t think 0.6 (additional full-time teacher equivalents) at South is enough," he said. "I understand resources are tight … but I appeal on behalf of students and teachers at South for additional resources."
In language-arts classes in particular, Mr. Gilpin said teachers have less time to give feedback on students’ work, which could have a negative effect on students’ test scores. According to the National Council of Teachers of English, language-arts classes ideally should have no more than 20 students, and no teacher should have no more than 80 students total. Mr. Gilpin said his workload is 122 students.
The issue of class size also arose as board members noted that some sections of electives at the high schools have fewer than 10 students. In most cases, the small number of students resulted from students changing their schedules after the master schedule was finalized. Board member Richard Kaye suggested considering stricter rules to prevent students from requesting schedule changes after the deadline.
"At some point, that is taking money away from other students who have greater need than those six students for an elective," Mr. Kaye said.
Over the next several meetings, the board will hear more budget presentations on the middle schools, elementary schools, special services, athletics, buildings and grounds, transportation, and technology.
"I ask you to hold judgment on where we’re going to be until we work through this process," Dr. Loretan said.
The budget vote and school board election will take place April 18.