Budget cut seen; less than in 2005

School board prepares for cuts

By: Dick Brinster
   Schools Superintendent Ron Bolandi was not expecting classroom issues to be affected at a combined meeting of the East Windsor and Hightstown councils to consider the district’s defeated budget scheduled for last night, after the Herald’s deadline.
   Mr. Bolandi speculated on Tuesday that the budget would be cut, and several sources familiar with the process told the Herald that the $79.2 million measure would be reduced by less than $1 million, the amount by which a defeated budget was slashed by the councils last year.
   "I understand they feel the need to reduce it," Mr. Bolandi said. "I think they’ll come up with a reasonable number and everybody will move on from there."
   Sources close to the negotiations said a margin of defeat of 55-to-45 percent left a more favorable impression on the council members than the 61-39 percentage setback of 2005, putting the committee in a posture to believe the measure should be cut by less.
   East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov, who with Hightstown Mayor Bob Patten is chairing the combined councils, would not discuss numbers but conceded the focus of the committee’s work was avoiding disruption of educational spending.
   "We’re looking at areas of the budget that we feel would not have a detrimental classroom effect on the students," she said Wednesday. "That’s our primary guiding principle."
   Mr. Bolandi said he was pleased with that approach.
   "The only area that doesn’t really affect the classroom is capital projects," he said.
   Crumbing curbing, potholes in parking areas, broken fencing and poor-quality surfaces on some athletic fields are the most visual of the district’s infrastructure problems.
   The governing bodies of East Windsor and Hightstown had until today, Friday, to cut, increase or leave untouched the $52.8 million local tax levy for the budget and submit a final budget to the Mercer County Board of Taxation and Superintendent of Education. The East Windsor Regional Board of Education can appeal the decision within 10 days of its submission to the county superintendent.
   Mayor Mironov, who was to chair the final of two public hearings last night at Kreps Middle School, said the combined governing bodies took into consideration at closed sessions the public’s comment and input from administrators and school board members. The process has not been easy, she explained.
   "We have an extraordinarily brief period of time," she said, alluding to the defeat of the budget April 18. "That clearly puts limitations on our abilities."
   The $1 million cut last year trimmed 3 cents from the school tax rates in both the township and the borough. Voter approval of this budget would have raised the school tax rate in East Windsor by 24 cents to $3.28 per $100 of assessed valuation. It would have gone up by 15 cents to $3.31 in Hightstown.
   In East Windsor, budget passage would have meant an increase in the school tax bill of $307 for homeowners assessed at the township average of $130,000. A homeowner in the borough would have absorbed an increase of $179 on an average assessment of $120,000.