EDISON — More additional layoffs and program cuts are expected in the school district.
That is what Board of Education President Gene Maeroff said the district faces after the Township Council on May 19 ordered a $6.5 million cut to the defeated school budget, thereby reducing the school tax hike from $269 to $109 on the average home.
The Board of Education will hold a special meeting Tuesday, June 1, at 7 p.m. in the Edison High School auditorium to discuss the additional potential reduction in staff and programs that the $6.5 million cut would entail. For more information about the suggested cuts, visit the school district’s website, www.edisonpublic schools.org/.
The council voted unanimously on the cut, recommending that the Board of Education reduce allocations for salaries and benefits. Council members said extra money had been budgeted in those areas. Their recommended cuts, which include a $2.3 million reduction in the health benefits line and roughly $900,000 from salaries, do not call for additional layoffs or program reductions.
By state law, the Board of Education is mandated by the $6.5 million cut, but does not have to follow recommendations by the council.
Maeroff said when the board and administration looked at the recommended cuts, their conclusion did not match the council’s.
“We didn’t find the money the auditor for the council found in the certain line items that they said there were,” he said.
And for that reason, Maeroff said the school district should “absolutely” expect more layoffs and cuts to programs.
The school board’s budget has already eliminated 131 positions in the district for the 2010-11 school year.
The council’s decision brought the Board of Education’s budget down from $204.8 million to $198.3 million. The original package carried a tax rate increase of 15 cents per $100 assessed valuation, but that will now be 8.9 cents. That amounts to an increase of $109 for the owner of a home assessed at the township average of $176,400.
Maeroff said with the board trying to make up the council’s $6.5 million cut and already dealing with the $9.7 million reduction in state aid, reimplementing full-day kindergarten will not be revisited.
The move back to a full-day program would have restored 25 teaching positions and 15 lunch aides at a cost of $1,360,000. The board’s 2010-11 budget, defeated at the polls April 20, made kindergarten a half-day program, among many other cuts. Kindergarten has been a full-day program since 2003.
Many parents and kindergarten teachers have come to the meetings over the past several months to speak on the importance of full-day kindergarten, some becoming emotional as they stressed that kindergarten is more than a “babysitting service” where children learn the alphabet. They said kindergarten sets the foundation of a child’s education, which they said needs to start at a young age.
“It’s very unfortunate and really a shame [that we cannot restore full-day kindergarten], but we simply can’t afford it,” Maeroff said.
School Business Administrator Dan Michaud said at the April 29 reorganization meeting that officials were able to reallocate $500,000 from the substitute-teacher-salary line item, $500,000 from the unemployment insurance account, and $260,000 from the free balance, or surplus, for the district to consider reinstating full-day kindergarten.
Maeroff said also at the June 1 meeting, the board was expected to go into closed session to discuss the status of the schools superintendent search. The board held two days of interviews with the seven candidates for the superintendent position on May 25 and 26.
A public decision was not expected to be made that night, the board president said.
John DiMuzio has been serving as acting superintendent since the board voted 4-3 to place then-Superintendent Carol Toth on paid administrative leave in November 2007. Her contract ends June 30. The school district has been paying both her salary, which reached $194,000 in April, and that of DiMuzio, who earns $177,480 annually.
The board voted unanimously May 6 to approve a resolution ending the contract of acting superintendent of schools as of July 1. The resolution states that the board either will appoint a superintendent of schools effective that date or appoint an interim superintendent to serve until the effective appointment of a permanent schools chief.