Board restores positions, driving up tax increase

EDISON — After almost nine straight hours of emotional and sometimes heated discussion, the Board of Education voted in favor of a $204.8 million school budget just before 4 a.m. April 1.
Board member Gene Maeroff cast the lone dissenting vote against the budget, saying that the board could have worked harder to provide a “more acceptable” tax impact on residents. However, he said he would not campaign against the budget.
The new 2010-11 budget calls for increasing the school tax rate by 15 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. This amounts to $268 annually on a home assessed at the township average of $176,400. Voters will have their say on the budget in the April 20 school election.
The budget was due for submission to the Middlesex County Executive Schools Superintendent Patrick Piegari by April 2.
“He could make additional cuts; however, I believe that is unlikely since we put in the items that are needed in the district,” Edison Public Schools Business Administrator Dan Michaud.
The new budget exceeds the state-imposed 4 percent tax levy cap by approximately 2.5 percent, Michaud said.
Acting Superintendent of Schools John DiMuzio said he and his administration did not want to propose the drastic cuts that were made. He said the cuts were warranted due to a 55.8 percent decrease in state aid, amounting to a loss of $9,743,671. State aid for next school year will be $7,727,638.
The board made significant changes to the tentative budget that was presented last week. That plan had called for the elimination of nearly 300 positions, including over 100 teachers. The preliminary plan also called for increasing the school tax rate by 11.6 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, which amounted to $204 annually on the average home.
The new budget adopted April 1 restores 127 paraprofessional positions, at a cost of about $2.6 million, as well as all 17 guidance counselors that were proposed to be cut. Also back in the budget are all 7.7 elementary strings and instrumental teachers, five of the seven literacy development teachers that were proposed to be cut, all co-curricular programs for K-12, six of the nine secretary positions, four of the six security guards, and freshman sports.
Positions that are still being cut are the 29 elementary school teachers — 25 related to the elimination of full-day kindergarten, and the other four from grades one through five. Also to be cut are 13 Spanish teachers at the elementary level, 12 literacy enrichment teachers, 11 special education teachers, eight high school teachers, eight middle school teachers, 15 lunch aides, eight middle school core curriculum coordinating leaders (CCCLs), five child study team members, four custodians, three Academically Talented (AT) program teachers at the elementary level, two inclusion facilitators and a district nurse.
The board had already announced that it is not filling the personnel director position, which is one of DiMuzio’s roles. Also, the positions of director of No Child Left Behind and director of instruction will be consolidated. The position of acting superintendent, with a salary of $177,480, will not be funded next year, because the board expects to name a permanent superintendent. The district is currently paying for the acting superintendent, as well as the $171,517 salary of Superintendent Carol Toth, who has been on paid administrative leave since 2007. Her contract expires in June.
Programs still to be cut or reduced include expenses for elementary, middle and high school field trips, summer school, textbooks, capital projects, technology maintenance at the middle and high schools, technology distribution, the fifth-grade trip to Camp Bernie, middle school athletics, 13 high school assistant coaches, crisis counselors, band transportation to away football games, extended school-year child study teams, and Saturday morning detention.
The lengthy meeting that began on March 31 was standing room-only at the beginning, with approximately 700 district employees, parents, and residents gathering in the auditorium at J.P. Stevens High School. A sea of red shirts represented the strong support for the paraprofessionals. Many of them explained what they did in the district to help special needs students. Parents with special needs students pleaded with the board to reinstate the paraprofessionals, questioning how they could cut a service to the most “vulnerable” of students.
A big round of applause was made after the board voted to reinstate all 127 paraprofessionals.
The school administration and board are still working on an agreement with the Edison Township Education Association, which represents 1,585 school employees including teachers. The union, on March 29, announced a proposal in which it would accept a salary freeze next year. This would defer for one year the third year of a three-year contract, essentially making it a four-year contract. The ETEA said the freeze would create savings of nearly $3 million. Also, the ETEA would agree to implement a 1.5 percent medical contribution starting July 1, one year earlier than is required by law. This would generate another $300,000 to $400,000 in additional budgetary revenue, according to the ETEA.
The teachers union said it hoped that its proposal would result in the board bringing back many of the positions and programs proposed for cutting.
Board President David Dickinson had appointed Michaud to oversee negotiations and look over the ETEA’s proposal due to seven board members’ conflicts of interest. Board Attorney Jonathan Busch said that Gene Maeroff and Aimee Szilagyi would be the only board members who could review and negotiate the union’s proposal; however Maeroff and Szilagyi were turned away from negotiations because Dickinson said he did not “trust” the two board members due to what he said were misleading editorial letters to the newspapers.
Szilagyi and Maeroff adamantly refuted Dickinson’s comments, and many residents and employees who spoke at the March 31 meeting called his comments unprofessional, calling for differences among board members to be put aside when making decisions affecting students.
The board president said he decided only to have Michaud negotiate with the ETEA.
Michaud said he rejected the ETEA’s proposal and asked the ETEA to consider the salary freeze without conditions such as deferring the contract’s third year into the 2011-12 school year.
ETEA President Emil Ferlicchi said the union would be willing to sit down with Michaud again.
However, at the meeting, the board did vote unanimously in favor of three agreements from other unions — the Facilities, Maintenance and Management Association Inc., the Edison Public Schools Custodians and Maintenance Association, and the Edison Principals and Supervisors Association — which all announced that they would take a salary freeze for next year, saving the district approximately $300,000.