LAWRENCE: State tells school districts, freeze nonessential spending

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
The word from state Commissioner of Education Lucille Davy is “freeze” — as in “freeze all nonessential and discretionary spending in each school district,” which the Lawrence Township public school district had begun to do even before the commissioner made her request.
    Commissioner Davy sent a letter last month to all school districts that recommended freezing nonessential and discretionary spending for the rest of the school year. She wrote that she was attempting to identify state mandates and requirements that could be lifted to ease the financial burden.
    “Given the uncertainty of the magnitude and impact of a prolonged national recession on our state’s fiscal situation, I am recommending that you immediately take the same steps (to freeze spending) that we have taken in the Department,” Commissioner Davy stated in the Jan. 16 letter.
    State revenues are declining and the demand for social services is climbing, leaving the state with at least a $2.1 billion gap in the fiscal year 2009 budget, she wrote. The state has reduced state spending by $600 million, but the deficit still must be addressed.
    Gov. Jon Corzine implemented additional budget cuts across all state departments and agencies, and has frozen all discretionary spending —including at the state Department of Education, Commissioner Davy wrote, and that’s why she has made the same request.
    In the Lawrence school district, Superintendent of Schools Philip Meara ordered a spending freeze even before the district received Commissioner Davy’s letter, said Thomas Eldridge, school district business administrator.
    “We were doing the same exact thing as the Department of Education at the same time,” Mr. Eldridge said. “Only essential items are going to continue — a program or a project. But where we can defer, we do. For example, if we were planning on replacing a copy machine, it might have to wait.”
    But if the district is halfway through a project, such as the installation of solar panels on each school building, the district is not going to stop that project, Mr. Eldridge said. Projects such as the solar panels and the installation of new windows and doors at the Lawrence Intermediate School and Lawrence High School will continue, he said.