Werner Graf of Hopewell Township
During my term on Hopewell Valley’s school board, I found a competent administration, an intelligent, hard-working board, great teaching professionals, and an educational system that sets us all up for failure. The new referendum is a perfect example: a potential $33M hit to our community that we should to begin to discuss now.
Almost 70 percent of the district’s cost is in compensation. Therefore, reoccurring personnel costs are the main issue. Every budget compromise is a function of this — busing and string cuts, deferred maintenance, etc. Contractually, most district employees, even in the worst of times, are guaranteed 3-5 percent increases. With teachers, this is in addition to 2-4 percent step increases as they are promoted. Add healthcare, stipends, etc. and our 4 percent cap is outstripped annually. Something has to give.
The board, which I respect greatly, continues to fumble here. Two years ago, I voted against the budget because we deferred maintenance instead of doing the hard work of reducing reoccurring personnel costs. Last year, I offered seven budget amendments, mostly reductions in personnel costs, to reinstate services like hazardous busing and capital projects. All were voted down.
The board can only manage personnel costs through 1) strong negotiations, 2) cutting programs/services, or 3) increasing class size. The latter two directly and negatively impact the community. The former is the key, and despite some creative healthcare restructuring, I’m afraid the board has failed. Granted the HVEA has rigged the system through years of protracted lobbying in Trenton. Still, the board could have maintained an impasse until openly forced to concede by the state instead of being compliant in three years of non-retractable increases disproportional to the cap.
Instead, teachers were granted an unneeded retroactive 4.9 percent increase while the board rolls the dice with a maintenance referendum. If the public is at a saturation point with taxes and rejects it, then what? Leaking roofs in this community?
District employees (excepting paraprofessionals) must understand that their hard demands of perpetual increases will ultimately backfire. The cap is now outpaced by their demands. Should the community reject the tin-cupping for basic maintenance and capital improvements, then some employees might have to go. Wood shop? Music? Class size increases? It will hurt but, then again, 200,000 people left the state last year. New Jersey communities are strapped and can no longer fund our district employee’s unrestrained appetite. The board should know better. It’s for the children.
Werner Graf
Hopewell Township