Sayreville reduces school tax increase

Council orders $1M cut; tax hike drops from $88 to $30 on average home

BY JENNIFER BOOTON Staff Writer

The Sayreville Borough Council has obligated the Board of Education to reduce its tax levy by an additional $1 million.

Board President Michael Macagnone said the reductions would be achieved without laying off teachers, losing programs or directly impacting the classroom.

The board’s proposed budget for 2010- 11, which totaled $73.7 million, was rejected in the April 20 school election by a margin of 380 votes. The council, charged with reviewing the budget and deciding on a cut by May 19, hired auditor Mike Andriola of Wiss & Co. for the task. The auditor analyzed the budget and had discussions with school officials to identify a series of potential reductions. The analysis showed that Sayreville is among one of the most conservative school districts in the state in terms of spending.

Some of the tax levy reduction will be achieved through increased revenue. The school district learned after the budget’s defeat that it would receive $144,000 in extraordinary aid, and those funds will be applied toward the $1 million tax levy reduction. Transportation contracts that were renewed this year with no increase in cost, brought an additional $150,000 in savings.

Andriola recommended a variety of cuts, including saving $200,000 through attrition, $115,000 by eliminating a supervisor position, and $95,000 by doing away with one guidance counselor position. Another $60,000 could be saved with the elimination of a late bus, he said.

Before the school election, the board had already reduced its budget by $1.5 million, absorbing a $3.8 million state aid cut. While many other districts enacted widespread cuts to deal with sizable aid reductions, Sayreville school officials said frugal budgeting in prior years allowed them to absorb the loss in funds without severely impacting the classroom. The board used attrition to reduce salaries and benefits, and nixed plans to add new teachers that would have maintained current class sizes. The board also kept what it referred to as “highvalue programs,” such as courtesy busing and full-day kindergarten.

Sayreville resident Teresa Strek spoke out during the public portion of the Borough Council’s May 17 meeting, noting her opposition to “frivolous and excessive spending.”

“I’m here to champion the rights of senior citizens who have no children in the school system,” she said. “I’m here to implore the mayor and council to reduce the budget to a point where there will be no tax increase.”

The defeated budget included a school tax increase of 3 percent, amounting to $88.53 on the average borough home, assessed at $144,000. Jeff Bertrand, the borough’s business administrator, said the increase on the average taxpayer would now be in the range of $28 to $32 due to the council-ordered reduction.

The council voted 4-1 in favor of the $1 million cut, with council President Paula Siarkiewicz casting the only vote against it. Council members Lisa Eicher, David Kaiserman, Ken Kelly and Frank Bella all gave affirmative votes. Councilman Nicholas Perrette was absent from the meeting.

Eicher said voter apathy, and in particular those parents who did not vote in the school election, are responsible for the budget’s defeat and the resulting cuts.

“I don’t want to cut $1 million from the budget, but unfortunately we have to,” she said. Kaiserman said he approved of ordering the board to cut an additional $1 million because the auditor found ways to do so without eliminating teachers.

“We should be dumping more money into the schools because students are the future of our society,” he said. “But this year the voters spoke, and as much as I don’t like cutting the school budget, we have to listen.”

Macagnone said that, despite the additional cuts, the district is still much better off than many others in the state.

“We can live within the confines of that and what they recommended to us,” he said, noting that the district will not have to eliminate programs or lay off teachers.