OCEAN TOWNSHIP — Just a month after the voters rejected the 2010-11 Ocean Township School District budget by a mere six votes, the district has some closure.
District Superintendent Thomas Pagano said last week that both the Ocean Township Council and the Village of Loch Arbour, which sends students to the district, have agreed to cut $400,000 from the budget that the public voted down in the April 20 election.
“It has been resolved. The Ocean Township Council and the Village of Loch Arbour agreed to a $400,000 reduction, which the school board has taken and the resolution has been passed,” Pagano said.
“It’s all over with now.”
The Ocean Township Council unanimously approved the budget cuts during the May 18 council meeting.
The total budget will now drop to $69.1 million from the proposed $69.5 million. The tax levy will go from $54.8 million to $54.4 million.
The owner of the average Ocean Township home valued at $406,000 will see a $62.72 increase in taxes this year, down from $64.03 before the budget reduction.
Because of the state-mandated change in the apportionment for the sending town of Loch Arbour, residents with a home valued at the village average of $1.4 million would have seen a tax increase of $5,798 this year.
The district lost $5.5 million through state aid reductions in the last two years. In addition, the teachers’ union was asked to accept a salary freeze, but declined.
Pagano explained where the additional $400,000 in cuts would come from.
“Some of it was from breakage from the slew of retirees that we had,” he said. “There are some retiring that we are not replacing and others that we are replacing come in very low on the salary guide.
“When people retire, they leave a very high salary guide and we replace them with lower figures on the salary guide,” he added. “There were some further staff reductions but no programs were eliminated.”
Previously announced cuts, including administrative pay freezes and no additional funding for capital projects and technology equipment, will remain.
In previous meetings, the district announced that 39 positions would be cut through layoffs, retirements and attrition.
Pagano, who will retire as of June 30, said that district officials are still deciding how many positions will be cut and how many layoffs will be made, but he expects the final number to be close to 39.
“It’s hard to say, we are still tallying it up,” he said. “We gave out a number of nonrenewal notices; however, then we received a slew of new retirements.
“What we’re doing now is hiring back those who were laid off,” he added. “We have to wait until the end to see how that shakes out.”
Pagano also said that the district is looking at restructuring positions.
“We are also doing some restructuring with our current positions where responsibilities and hours will change,” he said.
Pagano explained that due to some funding changes within the state, many employees are retiring earlier than he expected.
“I think all the rhetoric coming out of Trenton is making people rethink their life’s priorities and decide to retire,” he said.
Contact Kenny Walter at [email protected].