MILLSTONE – The Millstone Township School District has instituted a budget freeze.
Superintendent of Schools Mary Anne Donahue said at the Nov. 12 Board of Education meeting that when the district closed its accounting books at the end of the last school year, it found that the budget surplus was much less than a May review of the books had anticipated.
“When the books closed on June 30, there was only $160,000 left,” Donahue said.
Donahue called the surplus “dangerously low” and said that the district thought it had between $300,000 and $500,000.
Middle school language arts teacher Arlene Agulnick, who prompted the conversation regarding the spending freeze at the recent board meeting, called the calculation error an enormous mistake.
“How could there be that much difference between what was anticipated and half that amount?” she asked.
Donahue said, “There were no mistakes made, just unforeseen costs.”
She said that four students unexpectedly entered the school district last year and required to be placed out of district, at a cost of approximately $200,000.
Board Vice President Holly Dietz explained that the state no longer allows districts to forecast additional students in their budgets.
“We have to take the hit for them and include them in the budget for next year,” she said.
Board President Mary Ann Friedman said that the district also had higher energy costs than it expected this year.
“We budgeted for more, but it’s still higher than anticipated,” she said.
In addition, the board president said that the school district is dealing with increased enrollment in the midst of frozen state aid.
Friedman added that the school district has not been able to build up its surplus since several years ago, when it took half a million dollars out of its surplus to defer taxes.
Donahue added, “Since we had no other savings (we had used the surplus to offset taxes the year before), we entered this year with only $160,000 in surplus (savings).”
Donahue said that the audit of the school district’s finances is not complete.
“I do not have final numbers,” she said. “Final numbers should be available in late December when the audit is reported to the public.”
Elementary school teacher Irene Pearson commented that if the district cannot budget for unanticipated specialneeds students – which by law it must provide for – it will continually have a frozen budget.
Friedman said the district will have to consider any new special-needs students who need out-of-district placement as emergency budget items.
She said that by law, the district can only increase its budget by a certain amount.