Howell Township Council members have decided that an auditor should decide how much to pare from the defeated local and regional school budgets.
“How do we need to proceed with the school budget?” Howell Mayor Robert F. Walsh said at the April 27 council meeting. “How about very carefully?”
Walsh, Councilwoman Pauline Smith and Councilwoman Susan Schroeder Clark voted to hire an outside school auditor to scrutinize the Howell K-8 School District budget and the Freehold Regional High School District budget, which both went down to defeat in the April 20 school board election.
The three members of the governing body agreed to cap the auditor’s fee at $10,000.
“It’s a huge undertaking for us,” Clark said. “We are lay people. I don’t have an accounting degree. I think it is something we owe to the people.”
The vote to hire an auditor was 3-1. Deputy Mayor Angela Dalton voted no. Councilman William Gotto was absent.
“It’s $10,000 of taxpayers’ money,” Dalton said. “I’ll be the first to say why don’t we do it without [an auditor]. We are splitting hairs over a donation to a dog park. I don’t think we have the money to spend.”
Walsh said the tax levies that were proposed by the Howell Board of Education and the FRHSD Board of Education to support the upcoming school-year budgets had been defeated “resoundingly” by voters.
“It wasn’t the enemies of the board that voted it down, it was people,” the mayor said. “It wasn’t the governor who voted down these budgets. It was everyday citizens. I think, personally, it was a mandate. We have our work cut out for us.”
The council cannot cut specific items from a school budget. What the council can do is certify a tax levy for the upcoming year, telling the school board members and school administrators, in effect, how much money they will have to work with. The council must certify a tax levy by May 19.
“We cannot dictate what to cut, just take money away,” Walsh said. “Only [the school district] has the total final say. The final decision [on what to cut from the budget] is theirs. We can only recommend a dollar amount. If they don’t like the dollar amount, they can appeal” to the state commissioner of education.
Dalton asked why the township’s financial staff could not do the work. All the council needs to do is suggest a dollar amount to be cut from the budget, she said.
Howell Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Filiatreault said neither he nor his assistant is a public school accountant.
“Neither one of us has done any school budgets,” he said. “It’s the blind leading the blind. We do not have the expertise to analyze the school budget. You really need somebody who knows their stuff.”
Smith agreed with that assessment.
“I’m the first one to scream ‘Do it yourself or do without,’but I don’t think this is an occasion when it is possible. I think we have to hire an auditor,” the councilwoman said.
Walsh compared the school budget review process to a “dog and pony show.”
“The bottom line is we come up with a figure,” he said. “The [school boards and administration] have to do zero of what we recommend.”
Walsh, Dalton and Clark will serve on the budget recommendation panel. The council will hold a special meeting at 7 p.m. May 18 to announce a decision on the tax levies for the K-8 and high school districts, he said.
“Last year we had teachers outside the door here,” Walsh said. “I’ll bring my sleeping bag.”
The financial problems plaguing New Jersey’s municipalities and school districts are not likely to end this year, he said.
“This is not a passing fancy,” Walsh said. “I think we are in for an awakening, and we are going to have to make some very difficult decisions on what are necessities and what are wants.”