By: Cara Latham
WASHINGTON The school district’s defeated $30.8 million budget will head to the Township Council for review on May 15.
The rejected 2007-2008 budget proposed a school tax levy of about $16 million. Because of the recent revaluation of all township properties and the delay in certifying the new property values, the board based its tax figures on last year’s assessment numbers when the average assessed property value was $169,000. Under those numbers, the tax rate was expected to be $3.14 per $100 of assessed value, meaning the owner of that average assessed property would have paid a school tax of approximately $5,306 about $608 more than last year, an increase of 12.9 percent.
"We feel that it was a very arduous and difficult process," Superintendent Jack Szabo said Monday of the budget process. "We believe that the budget accurately reflected the needs of the students of the districts and provided for all of the things that the board has instructed us to ensure in this budget."
Under state law, the defeated school budget must be reviewed by the Township Council, which has the power to approve the spending plan as it now stands or reduce the school tax levy. If the council reduces the tax levy the amount of money raised by taxation and the school board doesn’t want to make cuts, the Board of Education can appeal the municipality’s decision to the state commissioner of education.
The defeated school budget, Dr. Szabo said, would have ensured full-day kindergarten, maintained class sizes, maintained all of the district’s programs, and provided for the projected enrollment increase for the 2007-2008 school year.
It also prepared the district to bring the 12th grade into the district next year, completing the process of educating all of the students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in Washington next year, he said. This was the last year that high school seniors from Washington Township attended classes Lawrence High School.
"It was disappointing," Dr. Szabo said of the budget defeat. "However, we are prepared to work with the council to provide an appropriate education for our students."
Before the school elections were held last week, Dr. Szabo said school officials were disappointed about not getting state core curriculum aid that other communities were getting, and that the lack of state funds had caused the tax increase.
"If we received the aid that we feel we deserved, there would have been no increase in the tax rate," he said. He said that $2 million in lost core curriculum aid and $1 million that the school district could have received toward the full-day kindergarten program would have prevented the proposed tax increase.
In addition, Dr. Szabo said he thought voters found it difficult to accept a 12.9 percent increase. But, he pointed out, the budget, which was defeated by a vote of 685 to 782, wasn’t rejected by an overwhelming margin.
"In all honesty, if you look at figures, we are far below the state average when it comes to per pupil spending," he said. "Our population is increasing dramatically," he said referring to the 11 percent enrollment increase the school district is facing per year. "With those kinds of increases, it’s inevitable that the budget is going to have to increase."
And without state funding, he said, that burden falls back to the local taxpayers.
Township Council President Sonja Walter said Monday that copies of the defeated school budget were delivered to the Township Council Friday, and that a public meeting of the school board and council has been scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on May 15 at the Senior Center.
She said she and council Vice President David Boyne and Dr. Szabo would meet in advance of the public meeting "and hopefully come into a much better understanding."

