The $740,000 package of cuts was developed by school administrators and the Facilities and Finance Committee
By John Tredrea, Staff Writer
The Hopewell Valley Regional Board of Education is considering cutting $740,000 from its draft budget for 2009-2010.
If enacted, the cuts could lower the budget’s property tax rate increase over last year’s spending plan to 1.2 percent, school district spokeswoman JoAnn Meyer said Tuesday.
The state allows a property tax rate increase of 4 percent. The board’s Facilities and Finance Committee had set a goal of developing a budget that would bring a zero property tax-rate increase over last year.
The $740,000 package of cuts was developed by school administrators and the Facilities and Finance Committee, chaired by Jim Wulf of Hopewell Township. The package was presented to the full board for its consideration Monday night.
The $740,000 in proposed cuts includes:
— $80,000 by reducing health benefits;
— $40,000 by not filling a vacant campus safety officer position at Timberlane Middle School. Timberlane still has one campus safety officer, and Central High School, located across the street from Timberlane, has two officers. If the position is left unfilled, Timberlane could share of one Central High School’s two safety officers with the high school, Ms. Meyer said.
— $325,000 in teaching staff reductions made possible by reduced student enrollment. This could include three elementary teaching positions and one position each at Timberlane Middle and Central High schools.
— $185,000 by eliminating several paraprofessional positions, all for clerical work.
— $110,000 by redesigning the Gifted and Talented program by reducing pull-out class times from one hour to 42 minutes. In educational parlance, gifted and talented students are “pulled out” out of their regular classrooms to participate in gifted and talented programs. The reduction to 42 minutes could result in the reduction of 1.7 teaching positions.
School officials say, if teaching positions were eliminated, the district would try to make it happen by attrition — that is, by not filling the positions of teachers who leave. However, it is possible some teachers could lose their jobs if the full package of cuts were enacted. Ms. Meyer noted that, due to declining enrollment, average class sizes would not be impacted by the cuts if all were enacted.
Superintendent search — Scheduled to be conducted last night (Wednesday) were the second interviews of the three finalists for the post of superintendent of the Hopewell Valley Regional School District.
Whoever is chosen will replace Thomas Butler, who has been serving as the Valley’s interim superintendent of schools. He replaced Judith A. Ferguson, who retired in late summer 2008.
According to a January report, the board planned to pick a new superintendent sometime in March and to have that person on board by July 1.
School board candidates — As of Wednesday, Leigh Ann Peterson (incumbent) and Brian McHugh, both of Hopewell Township, had filed as candidates for the two open township seats on the school board. Three seats are open and will be filled April 21. The third seat belongs to Pennington Borough. The filing deadline is 4 p.m. Monday (March 2).

