By Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
Residents in the three municipalities making up the Bordentown Regional School District will be asked to approve an increase of 4 percent in the tax levy at the April 21 school election.
With a proposed total operating budget of about $33.9 million, up $106,415 from last year, nearly $23.2 million would be raised through taxation.
Due to this year’s property tax revaluations in Bordentown Township and Fieldsboro, the tax levy in cents per $100 will drop, but the average assessed house has risen in value.
Bordentown Township will see a $1.49 decrease to $1.286, a decrease of about $51 for the year for the owner of a house valued at the new township average of $281,311.
Fieldsboro’s rate will drop about $1.69 to almost $1.40, which would lead to a decrease of about $151 in the tax bill for the average homeowner whose residence is valued at $180,238, the borough average.
Bordentown City, which did its revaluation in 2008, will see a 5-cent increase to $1.284, an increase a bit over $111 for the owner of a home valued at the city average of $222,994.
To clarify the tax impact to individual homeowners, the district has posted a 2009-10 tax estimator to its Web site, www.bordentown.k12.nj.us.
”Budgeting, obviously, in these economic times is a challenge,” said Business Administrator Peggy Ianoale.
”We worked very hard to keep the kids in the center of any budget discussion. Any necessary decreases were kept out of the classroom,” she said.
”It has been our philosophy to do right things for the kids and then adjust the less important parts of the budget to make that work,” she said.
In its budget presentation, the district said it was impacted by a loss in surplus funds and tuition for high school students from New Hanover as well as the defeat of last year’s budget.
The proposed budget does not add any new staff, but does account for infrastructure and technology upgrades. It also maintains existing academic, scholastic and extracurricular programs, though high school electives would require 15 students in order to be held next year.
The district has cut its plan to implement a new preschool program for children at risk, citing the loss of state funding that earlier had been promised to all New Jersey school districts.
The Board of Education’s meetings drew large crowds in the past few weeks over its plan to reduce and restructure the district’s aide staff. After the first proposal drew public outcry, the district reconsidered and now plans to only reduce the force among the 24 paraprofessionals hired after July 1, 2008.
The 50 other educational aides hired before that date will be employed next year, officials have said, though they are not guaranteed the same position or number of hours. Transportation and copy aide positions are also to be cut, as per state regulations.
Overall, there are expected to be a similar number of paraprofessional aide positions next year as there are now, though many more will be part time. Staff funding would take a $428,000 hit from this year’s paraprofessional budget of about $1 million.

