Township Council members are promising to listen to the voters.
And who can blame them?
Voters rejected a $135.9 million school-district budget 1,233 to 1,174 on April 15, an outcome that places the budget before the council. Critics of the school plan, like former Mayor Debra Johnson and Republican council candidate John O’Sullivan, say there is excess fat that can be trimmed. Put the board on a diet, they say, and make the taxpayers happy.
We think this is simplistic and ignores the hard work the school board and school administration have put in to keeping tax increases to a minimum in recent years. We agree that the council must make cuts — otherwise, why have residents vote — but we should not be so presumptuous as to assume that school spending in South Brunswick is off the charts.
State figures are instructive: South Brunswick spends nearly $1,100 per pupil less than the state average and the state’s aid calculations this year assumed that the district should be spending more than it is.
The district, as school board President Martin Abschutz said last week, runs “a fiscally sound operation.”
So what to do? To cut a penny off the proposed tax rate of $2.618 of $100 of assessed valuation — a 2.3 percent increase — the council will need to reduce the tax levy by $785,000. It can do that a number of ways: by cutting spending, proposed capital projects or various reserves or by requiring the board to use more of its fund balance as revenue.
None of these are perfect options.
While we do think cuts need to be made, we also would caution the council against using the school budget for political purposes. Three members of the council are up for re-election this year at a time when the township’s fiscal health is very much in doubt. Over much of the last half dozen years, the council has been spending more money than it has been taking in, a practice it needs to address to ensure a secure fiscal foundation down the road.
The council, however, has not shown much stomach for addressing this issue, opting instead to spend its surplus and nibble around the edges of its own budget.
The school budget offers council members an opportunity to look tough on taxes without injuring its own core constituencies.
Taking that approach would be a mistake and would do a disservice to students in the district’s 10 schools.
We also wish to remind the council that it lacks a mandate on the school budget. Yes, it was defeated, but the margin of defeat was 59 votes, or 2.4 percent. And turnout was the lowest the district has seen since 2003, with nearly 1,100 fewer voters turning out this year than in 2007. Basically, only one in 10 registered voters bothered to cast ballots on April 15, a figure that is so low it leaves us questioning whether any kind of conclusion can be drawn from the results.
Council members need to keep this in mind when they talk about the will of the voters.
More importantly, the council needs to respect the school board, its goals and priorities. Cut the budget but make sure the district’s classrooms are not affected.