BY BRIAN DONAHUE
Staff Writer
JoAnn Magistro EAST BRUNSWICK – The Board of Education last week adopted a school budget that is up nearly 4 percent due to salaries and benefits, staffing new classrooms, and improvements that officials say are desperately needed.
The $129.4 million budget calls for a tax rate increase of 36.1 cents, meaning the owner of property assessed at $100,000 would pay $361 more in school taxes for the 2007-08 school year. The budget, adopted in an 8-0 vote March 29, will go before voters April 17 during the annual school election.
School Business Administrator Bernardo Giuliana said nearly half of the $4.87 million spending increase is related to the opening of new classroom wings at the Central and Lawrence Brook elementary schools, part of a $106 million construction project approved by voters in 2005.
“When you look at the overall growth in the rest of the budget, about $2.5 million, this is a very reasonable budget,” Giuliana said.
Six new full-time teachers are proposed for the new classrooms at Central and Lawrence Brook, while an additional two full-time teachers are earmarked for the Learning and Language Disabled program, which is being expanded and relocated to Lawrence Brook.
Also, five new full-time teaching positions and six full-time instructional aides are proposed for the district’s autism program, which will be located at Central. Many of those positions are being offset with grant funding, which covers the first-year salaries.
Other new positions include a total of 1.5 new teaching positions at East Brunswick High School and Churchill Junior High School, while one new full-time grounds person is proposed to handle the increased workload related to new athletic fields and improving general field conditions at Churchill.
While most of the new positions are for the expanded schools, officials noted that those improvements will allow the district to return students to the schools that are closest to their homes.
“Part of our objective with that bond referendum was to reduce class sizes across the district and bring students back to their home schools,” said Patricia LaDuca, coordinator of community relations and programs. “This allows us to do that, and we’re very excited to keep that promise.”
Despite a previous decision not to fund new assistant principal positions, the school board resolved to fund four such positions for the next school year after administrators were able to renegotiate the district’s insurance rates to bring about savings. The new administrators, who will primarily serve the four largest elementary schools – Central, Lawrence Brook, Chittick and Warnsdorfer – can be afforded while still keeping the budget within the state-mandated 3.9 percent cap on spending increases, LaDuca said.
Also for 2007-08, the school district is expected to hire five new bus drivers and one bus aide at a total cost of $165,835 for new buses being placed in service in September. The district has been acquiring buses in recent years to help address transportation issues, and said the new buses and drivers result in a cost similar to what the district would have paid to contract out for those routes.
Giuliana said the district’s push to use more in-house transportation services resulted from a “challenging” start of school in September 2005 when the district was forced to use charter buses. Though the district began acquiring more in-house buses last year, most of its bus service remains contracted out.
“The district is very reliant on contractual services, and we were having a difficult time having our needs met,” he said, noting that part of the need for more buses related to special education. The five new buses and drivers represent the last of the new purchases in this area for the foreseeable future.
“Because it gives us greater control, we’ve moved in that direction,” Giuliana said. “In terms of the costs, it’s been quite balanced.”
Beyond new hires and contractual salary and benefits increases, factors contributing to the budget increase include higher energy costs, to the tune of $687,430. Of that increase, nearly $400,000 is related to the costs of supplying heat and electric to the renovated and expanded schools, while the rest is attributed to regular rate increases, Giuliana said.
The district also will fork out money for cable TV infrastructure modifications district-wide, HVAC replacements at the Bowne-Munro, Frost, Churchill and administration buildings, dry-hood suppression systems at five elementary schools, parking lot repairs at the high school, district-wide carpet and floor tile replacements, gym modifications at Churchill, concrete and blacktop repairs district-wide, and few more minor projects.
Officials said the projects have been delayed over the years and are badly needed. Without new dry-hood systems, for example, those schools’ kitchens would not be able to open in September, LaDuca said.
Giuliana said part of the reason for the tax increase proposed now is the result of postponing projects in past years.
“We’ve been forced to put off our facilities needs, but it’s just delaying the inevitable,” he said. “And it compounds the potential for problems because you have to deal with more at once rather than in a planned sequence.”
The school district faced a flat level of state aid for five years, but will now see an increase of $553,094. Officials noted that state aid remains under $20 million, however, while the district’s budget has risen from $62 million in 1996 to nearly $130 million.
Superintendent of Schools Jo Ann Magistro said East Brunswick and other school districts throughout New Jersey are appealing to their communities to help support the schools in the absence of additional state funding.
“Until the state Legislature solves the school funding problems, this situation will continue,” she said during last week’s budget presentation. “It is not fair to our students that school elections are the only opportunity for voters to express their dismay and vent their frustrations with rising taxes.”
Though it may result in program cuts that would affect students, Magistro noted that a budget defeat at the polls would still result in a tax increase.
“Our current students and those that follow deserve the same education as those that came before them,” she said.