By Eileen Oldfield, Staff Writer
The district altered its Board of Education meeting schedule by moving a meeting one week later than it was initially scheduled, so it would have accurate state aid numbers when presenting the school budget, officials announced at the Monday meeting.
Instead of meeting March 15 — prior to Gov. Chris Christie’s state of the state address —the Board of Education will now meet at 7:30 p.m. March 22 in the Auten Road Intermediate School cafetorium, to approve a tentative budget that will be sent to the county.
"The main reason for making this change is that Gov. Christie will make his state of the union speech on March 16, and we will not have our state aid numbers until March 18," District Superintendent Edward Forsthoffer said. "This will give us just four days to prepare a tentative budget to send to the county on March 22."
In addition, the district will have a budget hearing at 7:30 p.m. March 26, also in the Auten Road Intermediate School cafetorium, where it will adopt a budget for the April 20 election. Dr. Forsthoffer noted the public hearing occurs on the only date the district is able to have it.
"The state has established that the budget public hearing must occur between March 26 and April 3, and the board must adopt a final budget at that hearing," he added. "This is hard because for Hillsborough and other school districts because this is the Friday before spring break and the other dates occur during spring break. Based on the Board of Education’s availability, the only date is the (March) 26."
