by Peter Geier, Staff Writer
ROBBINSVILLE — The local school district has the lowest cost per student of any kindergarten-through-12th-grade school district of its class in New Jersey, Superintendent John Szabo recently pointed out.
Dr. Szabo, who is working with the school board to complete next year’s proposed budget, said at the board’s Feb. 24 meeting that Robbinsville remains one of the most fiscally efficient school districts in the state.
”Ours is not a spending problem; it’s a revenue problem,”” he said. “Unfortunately, our fiscal efficiency and frugality has not been awarded at the state level with appropriate aid.””
He added that the district’s growing population and rising costs for such items as textbooks, insurance, utilities and transportation, not to mention an increasingly experienced staff, is driving up costs a lot quicker and higher than the state’s 4 percent annual revenue cap.
In the 2007-2008 school year, the comparative cost per pupil in Robbinsville Township was $9,685 — more than $3,000 less per pupil than the state average of $12,784 among schools of its class, and considerably less than the other districts of its class in Mercer County, according to the state Department of Education.
The state rates and organizes its school districts by socio-economic factors into “district factor groups” on a scale from A-J, a scheme by which it compares similarly situated districts in student achievement and other analyses. This organizational system does not have a significant influence on the school funding formula, according to the DOE Web site.
Robbinsville is one of three school districts in Mercer County and 104 districts statewide in the “I”” district factor group. The county’s other two “I”” group districts are Hopewell Valley Regional and Princeton Regional.
By comparison, the comparative per-pupil cost in the Hopewell Valley Regional School District last school year was $13,445, and Princeton Regional School District spent $16,834 per pupil, according to the DOE.
[vmo: optional ending: ]Two “I”” group school districts on the DOE’s list spent less per pupil than Robbinsville in 2007-2008. However, Byram Township School District in Sussex County, with comparative per-pupil costs of $9,431, and Greenwich Township School District in Warren County, at $9,580, are kindergarten-through-eighth-grade districts without high schools.
At the high end of the scale, comparative costs per pupil are as much as two-and-a-half times as high as those in Robbinville, state data show.
Lebanon Borough, a K-through-sixth-grade “I”” group district in Hunterdon County, had a comparative per-pupil cost of $23,480, and Alpine Borough, a K-through-eighth-grade “I”” district in Bergen County, spent $23,064 in comparative per-pupil costs in 2007-2008.
Dr. Kathleen Semergieff, superintendent of Alpine Borough School District, said Alpine’s higher cost per pupil is “a number the state puts up that we don’t agree with”” and reflects special programs, including foreign languages, and the small student population of the district’s only school.

