HILLSBOROUGH: Initial school budget chops jobs, programs

By Eileen Oldfield, Staff Writer
   Despite eliminating more than 26 positions and a number of programs, the $113.7 million tentative school budget for the 2010-2011 school year presented by District Superintendent Edward Forsthoffer during Monday night’s Board of Education still requires a $2.2 million cap adjustment.
   The tentative budget of $113,784,693, which would be a 4.5 percent increase over last year’s $109,201,188 budget, would increase the local tax rate by 7.2 cents per $100 of assessed value, from $1.97 to $2.04. An owner of property assessed at the township average of $375,000 would see the school tax portion of their property tax bill rise $264.50, to $7,650.

   ”I don’t take any credit for the last two years,” Dr. Forsthoffer said. “Hillsborough was very fortunate in receiving increases in state aid. Unfortunately, we cannot sustain a 1 cent tax increase (this year).”
   ”We are taking an already lean budget and trimming it deeper than we should,” he added. “But because of a cost increase, we are going to see a tax increase.”
   The budget, however, will not add new programs, and the district will see several staff and program reductions — the result of needing to close a $3.9 million dollar budget deficit. Applying for the cap adjustment — normally, school districts can only increase the funds generated by the local tax levy by 4 percent more than the prior year’s levy — is a way of preventing even steeper cuts, and is state-approved in certain situations, Dr. Forsthoffer said.
   ”The state does allow for districts to request that their cap is adjusted and outlines a few situations where this may occur,” Dr. Forsthoffer said. “One instance that may require an adjustment would be if health benefit premium costs rise more than the stated 4 percent cap. Another situation would be if the district suffered a loss of revenue, such as a cut in state aid. My recommendation is that we will need to request this adjustment for health benefit increases.”
   The district expects a 19 percent increase in health insurance premiums, though the district’s insurance broker is currently hunting for a better rate, he added.
   Other challenges the district faces this year include salary increases equal to the entire amount of the allowable tax levy increase; a decrease in the surplus the district normally uses to offset the tax levy increase; and an expected decrease in state aid in the 2010-2011 school year.
   Applying for the cap waiver prevents the district from losing more staff members, and would allow many district programs to remain unchanged. If the district tried to reach cap without a waiver, 54 employees would need to be cut, and, to have a flat tax levy, 85 would need to be cut, according to Dr. Forsthoffer. The waiver allows the district to better prepare for a worst-case scenario — having the budget fail — since it would not be forced to reduce from a budget that already had many cuts.
   The district has asked its three bargaining groups — the Hillsborough Education Association, the principals and supervisors union, and the high school supervisors union —to meet with the board about opening contract discussions in light of the financial situation, Dr. Forsthoffer added. Dr. Forsthoffer, who is not involved in the negotiations, could not predict the savings the district would see from cutting salaries, but said it could save $2.8 million if salaries were frozen. Since many of the cuts listed in the presentation were job-related, the freeze would probably save jobs, he added.
   With many residents and teachers attending the meeting, several people requested the district keep the positions and programs that would be cut — particularly the Transitional Primary teachers, the coaching staff, the media center assistants, and the strings program.
   ”I’m just asking that you don’t just consider the ratio of students to coaches, but the nature of the activity,” Steve Molinaro, high school wrestling coach, said. “Over the years, the students have benefited from this … from having an extra coach in the room.”
   For Robin DeVincent, maintaining smaller class sizes in the Transitional Primary program was a goal, and she referenced a cut mentioned if the district did not apply for the cap waiver —increasing class size in second grade — as an alternative to increasing class size and cutting teachers in the Transitional Primary Program.
   ”This is the first time I’ve been very worried about the students’ education,” Ms. DeVincent, of DeCamp Drive, said. “The advantage of the transitional primary program is the small class size … I would suggest … increase the class size in the second grade rather than the Transitional Primary (since the second graders are older).”
   Hillsborough Education Association Vice President Daynon Blevins asked whether the district is considering a pay-to-play sports and extracurricular activities fee, as a way to generate additional revenue.
   The district is not considering pay-to-play because of current legislation that could outlaw the practice, though the district has considered it, Dr. Forsthoffer said.
   ”Since there is current legislation that could outlaw this practice, I did not want to put this into the budget as a revenue (source), and then have a hole in the budget a few months from now because we would not be able to do it,” he said. “Personally, I would prefer we not charge for sports and clubs, but we are examining each option.”
   For Jennifer Schultz, of Van Lieu Court, the district should consider cutting administrative positions rather than some of the teaching and support staff positions. Board member Frank Blandino echoed the sentiment during the board’s comments.
   ”I think we can still to look to our larger items cuts to keep cuts low,” Mr. Blandino said. “… I think we have a duplicity in our supervisors and vice principals … I urge us to re-look at some of those cuts.” While agreeing with Mr. Blandino on some points, board member John Donnadio felt the district should look at reducing its health care costs.
   ”What’s really troubling me is that we’re cutting coaches, we’re cutting media specialists but we’re not getting to the root of the problem,” Mr. Donnadio said. “We’ve got to get our hands around controlling those health care costs.”
   Reducing the number of cuts is paramount to board member Marc Rosenberg, who worried about the effects large numbers of cuts would have.
   ”There’s an expression, death by a thousand cuts,” Mr. Rosenberg said. “I see a budget that is death by a thousand cuts. When you start to chop away little pieces of it … you can say you’ve got a program, but what you’ve got isn’t worth anything.”
   ”I do not want to sit on this board and contribute to the unemployment rate anywhere,” he added. “The question for me is how can we preserve jobs … the state has basically said to Hillsborough, ‘you want to keep a good school district, fine. You pay for it.’”
   While the budget outlined at the meeting is only a tentative budget, and could change prior to being approved for the April election, the problem of presenting a budget with reductions and a tax increase remains.
   ”My biggest fear with this particular budget is that many people will look at it, myself included, and see that there are no new programs, staffing reductions, and a tax increase,” Dr. Forsthoffer said. “This may certainly (discourage) people and cause them to vote no on the budget, even when they have been supportive in the past. The problem is that if the budget is voted down, it will likely be further reduced, and there will be more cuts.”