By Nick Norlen, Staff Writer
One year after it saw its $56 million school budget package rejected by voters, the Princeton Regional School District is projecting a budget that “will come in under cap for the first time in many, many years,” Superintendent Judy Wilson said this week.
The tentative budget will be presented to the school board at its meeting Tuesday.
”We will have some cuts in personnel, primarily support personnel, and we have very little growth in any school or program budget — in many cases a decrease,” Ms. Wilson said.
The latest estimate puts the potential budget increase at 3.6 percent, according to Board of Education President Michael Mostoller.
Last year, the budget was voted down — passing by a narrow margin in the township, but losing in the borough — and eventually ended up in the hands of the municipal governing bodies for cuts.
Though still tentative, the current version of the Princeton Regional School District budget would result in highly different tax rates for Princeton Township and Princeton Borough.
If adopted as is, the working version of the budget would produce a half-cent tax rate decrease in the township and a nine-cent increase in the borough, Ms. Wilson said, noting that the difference is primarily due to the state formula based on housing sales and valuation.
”That percentage varies to a small degree each year,” she said. “This year the borough picked up an additional one percent of that responsibility.”
Ms. Wilson said the major impacts on the budget are “the district’s obligation to increase pension contributions, increase costs for Princeton Charter School and our standard package of energy and salaries and benefits costs.”
”We expect that the budget that we will move forward to the county will demonstrate to everyone in the borough and township that we have been able to find a very good balance between the excellence in the education programs and the need to contain costs,” she said.
Mr. Mostoller — who announced this week that he will not seek re-election after his term expires next month in order to devote more time to his work as an architect — said board members “are aware of the burden that the taxpayers face, including each one of us.”
But, he added, “We are not a spendthrift board in any way. We have an amazing school system,” he said. “We are going to maintain that.”
Mr. Mostoller said he hopes district residents realize that the tax burden is a statewide issue that often impacts local taxpayers, and said he hopes they simply don’t “take it out on us” because they can vote on the school budget.
For that reason, the school board “will be having a campaign to inform the community of what we are doing,” Mr. Mostoller said. “We want a positive vote. We are very aware the people are disgruntled. They should be. But it’s not only us. It’s the macro situation.”
The key, he said, will be getting the parents of the district’s 3,000 children out to the polls April 15.
Though she said some numbers will continue to be tweaked, Ms. Wilson said the district is “close” to completing the budget.
