Officials said $138,061 increase not enough to make a
dent in property tax bills.
By: Lea Kahn
For the first time in three years, the township and school district have received an increase in state aid but officials said it is not enough to make a dent in property tax bills.
The school district will receive an additional $138,061 in state aid, said Business Administrator Thomas Eldridge. The district received $4,492,411 in state aid for the 2006-07 budget, and expects to receive $4,630,472 for the proposed 2007-08 budget. This represents a 3-percent increase.
One penny on the tax rate in Lawrence is the equivalent of $269,000. To reduce the property tax rate by 1 cent per $100 of assessed value, the state would have had to increase state aid by $269,000.
"We didn’t expect to get more state aid, but we are thrilled to get it," Mr. Eldridge said. "We are pleased to get the increase. Any increase in state aid is good."
The last increase in state aid occurred in the 2004-05 budget. However, the district received $750,000 in extraordinary state aid for the 2004-05 and 2005-06 budgets, and $675,000 for the 2006-07 budget the last year for the additional money. State Sen. Shirley K. Turner, D-15th, lobbied for the extra money.
The extraordinary state aid money was intended to help offset the loss of tuition from Washington Township, which sent its high school students to Lawrence High School until that township decided in 2001 to open its own high school. Robbinsville High School opened in 2004.
Washington Township gradually withdrew its high school students from LHS. The 2006-07 school year marks the last year those students will attend LHS. The 2006-07 budget also was the last one to receive tuition. Washington Township paid $465,000 to send its students to LHS this school year.
Across town at the Municipal Building, township officials expect to receive an additional $103,335 in state aid, for a total of $5,505,217, Municipal Manager Richard Krawczun said. This represents a 1.9-percent increase in state aid the first increase since 2005, when state aid was frozen at $5,401,882, he said.
Mr. Krawczun said he was "not completely surprised" to see the additional funding. The extra $103,335 is a help, he said, but it doesn’t solve the problem of taxing property owners on an asset that does not produce income their houses.
"Certainly, any increase in state aid is welcome, but it certainly would have been helpful if a cost-of-living adjustment had been built into it so property owners could have the aid keep pace with the cost of operations in a municipality," he said.
"I will be working with Township Council to see how they want me to handle the additional state aid," Mr. Krawczun said.

