BY TOYNETT HALL & MARK ROSMAN
Staff Writers
The Freehold Regional High School District Board of Education has introduced a $165.1 million budget for the 2007-08 school year. The board introduced the budget during a meeting held at Freehold High School, Freehold Borough, on March 12.
The budget is tentative and subject to change before it is formally adopted by the board after a public hearing to be held at 8 p.m. March 26 at the FRHSD administration building, 11 Pine St., Englishtown.
Information on how the budget will impact local property owners’ taxes is expected to be available at the public hearing.
The FRHSD school tax is one portion of a property owner’s overall tax bill. The tax bill also includes municipal taxes, local school taxes, Monmouth County taxes and several other assessments.
Residents will have an opportunity to comment on the budget during the public hearing. The tentative budget has been sent to the Monmouth County superintendent of schools for review. The county superintendent is the local representative of the state Department of Education.
The FRHSD is made up of eight sending municipalities and operates six high schools. The present total enrollment is about 11,800 students.
According to information provided by the school district, the proposed general fund will be $155.1 million, and the proposed general fund tax levy will be $105.3 million The general fund tax levy is the amount to be voted on by residents in the April 17 school election.
The district’s total debt service (payments on outstanding loans) for 2007-08 will be $7.6 million. The debt service tax levy will be $5 million. Residents do not vote on the debt service tax levy.
The district’s total state aid for 2007-08 is $42.3 million.
A new state law has limited the amount of local property taxes the district may raise for the 2007-08 budget. Because of that fact, administrators will place a second question on the April 17 ballot asking voters to approve certain expenditures.
The board will ask voters if they want to pay an additional $1.5 million in local taxes to fund freshman sports, district security, auditorium renovations, roofing repairs, and instructional and noninstructional equipment. The taxes, if raised, will be used exclusively for those purposes, according to the board. Approval of the extra taxes will result in a permanent increase in the district’s tax levy. The proposed second question expenditures are in addition to those necessary to achieve the state’s Core Curriculum Content Standards.
According to FRHSD Business Administrator Joan Nesenkar Saylor, “These programs [on the second question] could not fit in the budget. We will have them as a second question and if that question is approved, that tax levy will become part of our base tax levy for the future. If the second question is not approved, we can appeal [the outcome of the vote] to the governing bodies in the sending municipalities. They may reinstate [the second question items], but they do not have to.”
Saylor said if freshman sports are approved in the second question they will remain in the budget for subsequent years.
Other components in the second question are auditorium renovations, roofing repairs and district security.
According to Saylor, if the second question is approved Freehold and Marlboro high schools will receive renovations to their auditoriums. In addition, Freehold and Manalapan high schools and the district’s administration building in Englishtown will receive roofing repairs.
Funds raised for district security will be used for the “extension of cameras and
other equipment to keep our schools safer,” Saylor said.
In an interview on March 16, Superintendent of Schools James Wasser said the reason why some items have been placed on the second ballot question is because a new state law that limits the amount of money that can be raised in local property taxes was flawed.
The superintendent said the end result was a reduction in the expected 4 percent increase in the tax levy for 2007-08 to a 2.5 percent increase in what could be raised from property owners.
Wasser said he has brought this situation to the attention of state education officials, who are examining the law to see if any assistance can be given to the district.
Administrators are also trying to deal with a tuition increase from the Monmouth County Vocational School District that they were just notified about. Some students attend school in the FRHSD for part of the day and then attend a school in the vocational district part time. Some students who live in the district attend a vo-tech school full time. The FRHSD pays that tuition. The increase in tuition for 2007-08 is expected to amount to $245,000 for the part-time and full-time vocational students.
“We are not pleased with that,” Saylor said.
According to Saylor, the tuition increase is not included in the tentative budget that was introduced by the board on March 12. The vocational tuition is proposed to go from $600 to $1,000 per pupil.
Wasser said it is unclear where the extra $245,000 the FRHSD now needs to pay to the vocational school district will come from in the budget. He said Saylor is attempting to figure out an answer to that question.
“I am furious about the increase in the vo-tech tuition. There was no communication on this, no phone call, no letter,” Wasser said. “I am going to ask that everything in the vocational school district’s budget be scrutinized. We are attempting to keep our tax rates as low as possible and then we get hit with something like this at the last minute.”
In other business at the March 12 meeting, the board approved the retirement of six longtime employees.
They are: Carol Camisa, executive secretary, 29 years in student services administration; Her retirement will become effective Aug. 1. Linda Dreyer, attendance officer in Manalapan High School for 25 years; Her retirement will become effective July 1. Eleanor Glaser, a secretary at Manalapan High School who has worked in the district for 33 years; Her retirement will become effective July 1. Mary Guissanie, a secretary at Marlboro High School who has 27 years of service; Her retirement will become effective May 1. Carol Lifland, Freehold High School, who has worked in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences for 31 years; Her retirement will be effective July 1. Bus driver Rosemarie Terhune will retire from the school district after 23 years of service; Her retirement will become effective on Nov. 1.
Saylor said administrators will examine the budget and make a determination on whether to fill these positions.