School officials meet tonight to act on revised spending plan
By John Tredrea
With several members expressing serious misgivings about doing so, the Hopewell Valley school board voted unanimously Monday to accept the $2,140,694 reduction to the 2006-2007 school budget mandated by the Valley’s three municipal governments May 11.
A school board vote to adopt the slashed budget is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. today (Thursday) at the district’s administration building at 425 S. Main St., Pennington. The budget under consideration will include the cut already approved by the board, as well as the governing bodies of Hopewell Township and Pennington and Hopewell boroughs.
Readoption of the budget would lower the levy to $55,061,914 and reduce the school tax rate an estimated 2 cents per $100 of assessed property value in all three towns.
"I’m very disappointed about the severity of the cuts," school board President Kim Newport said before the board voted Monday night. "These cuts are being made in the face of rising enrollment and rising costs in energy, maintenance" and other areas, she said. "These cuts will challenge our ability to maintain our facilities properly."
Board Vice President Linda Mitchell, like Ms. Newport, noted the board worked intensely on the budget for eight months. She urged "registered voters to come out and vote" in future elections and was chagrined that a no vote from 10 percent of the Valley’s registered voters was enough to defeat the budget in an election with an 18 percent voter turnout.
The budget reductions will result in no job layoffs or program eliminations in the district, officials said. The cuts come from the following areas:
$534,809 earmarked for construction of bleachers around the field used for football, track and field, and other sports at Timberlane Middle School;
$328,824 from maintenance reserve funds;
$250,691 from the district’s surplus;
$307,000 from employee health benefits;
$719,370 allocated for various construction projects.
It was during a joint meeting on May 11 at Timberlane Middle School that the three municipalities agreed to cut $2,140,694 from the budget that was rejected 1,548 to 1,141 on April 18. The public turnout for the well-publicized meeting was fewer than 10 people. The cut will be taken from the $57,202,608 portion of the budget that would have been raised by the local tax levy had the budget passed.
Hopewell Borough Council voted unanimously (6-0) in favor of the cuts at the May 11 meeting, as did the Hopewell Township Committee. The township vote was 4-0, since Committeewoman Judy Niederer had recused herself because her husband works for the school district.
Pennington voted 4-1 in favor, with Joseph Lawver casting the no vote. Mr. Lawver said he was concerned about the fiscal impact that cuts of this magnitude, particularly in the area of maintenance, would have in future years.
Voting in favor from Pennington were David Garber, Eileen Heinzel, Weed Tucker and Tony Persichilli. Jim Lytle was absent.
Mayor Jim Benton of Pennington, who under Pennington’s form of government only would have voted only to break a tie, recused himself because his wife is a teacher at Hopewell Elementary School.
During the public hearing that preceded the vote on the cuts on May 11, former school board President Sally Turner of Hopewell Township implored the governments not to cut so heavily from the maintenance portion of the budget. She said doing so would inevitably cost the district much more money in the long run. She said maintenance can only be deferred, not eliminated, and deferring it would raise the price tag significantly and could force the district to seek maintenance funds in a referendum a situation that occurred in the early 1990s.
The only other person to speak was township resident Gene Ramsey, who urged the governments to approve the cuts. "Listen to how the community expressed itself in the election," he said.
AT MONDAY NIGHT’S school board meeting, several board members, in addition to Ms. Newport, echoed Ms. Turner’s concern about maintenance.
"As head of the board’s Facilities Committee, I have to say that these recommended reductions are very short-sighted," board member Edward Gainsborg of Hopewell Township said. "Saving a dollar on maintenance today will cost $3 tomorrow. Maintenance has to be done sometime and will cost more later."
Board member Judy Karp and other members said they were not happy about voting for the cuts but felt constrained to do so.
"The needs of our buildings are not going to go away," she said. "But we’re faced with a procedural reality and are at a crossroads with our three municipalities."
Board member Carl Swanson put it this way: "We’re dealing with the consequences of having a broken system for dealing with school budgets."
Board member Werner Graf, who said he would vote against the readopted budget tonight although he voted in favor of the cuts, said the school district should investigate transferring the annual $500,000 tab for hazardous busing to the municipalities.