CENTRAL JERSEY: Districts to benefit from federal funds

By Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
   Of the $262,742,643 New Jersey School districts will receive through the federally funded Education Jobs Act, area districts will receive a total of $714, 360 in funds to use for salaries, health insurance, and other areas, according to the State Department of Education.
   The West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District will receive $354,301, while Princeton Regional will get $180,594 and Montgomery will take in $179,465.
   The funds may be used for salaries, performance bonuses, health insurance, retirement benefits, incentives for early retirement, tuition reimbursement, student loan repayment assistance, transportation, and reimbursement for childcare expenses. Other uses include retaining existing employees, recalling or rehiring former employees, or to hire new employees for early childhood, elementary or secondary education services as well, according to the state.
   Districts can use the funds to restore salary or benefit reductions or to implement salary increases in the 2010-2011 school year, according to the state. The funds may also be used for additional salary and benefit costs incurred from eliminating furlough days that would have occurred this year.
   In Montgomery, Superintendent Earl Kim said Wednesday he plans to recommend the Board of Education hold onto the money until next year, when the district is anticipating a $3.2-million budget gap that will be the subject of several town hall-style meetings this year.
   ”We have to. If we were to spend it now, that would exacerbate the gap,” he said. But he acknowledged some of the board members may “want to adhere to the spirit of the (Education Jobs) bill and use it as stimulus for the economy. And I understand that, but we’re balancing that goal against the fiscal stability of the district and just like all politics are local, all economics is local.
   ”We need to be able to get through next school year.”
   Mr. Kim said he had not anticipated the money because he believed the bill to be “dead” until this summer. He also said he was disappointed the distribution within New Jersey did not address the way state aid has been cut, which did not adhere to the state’s usual formula.
   While the intent of the jobs bill funding distribution was “honorable,” he said, “the end result was that districts that got harmed, relatively speaking, were the suburban districts.”
   WWP Superintendent Victoria Kniewel said Wednesday the district had not yet planned how it would spend the federal funds.
   ”We’re actually having discussions and looking at our priorities based on what we had to reduce in last year’s budget,” she said. “We’re looking at what are our most pressing instructional needs.”
   A meeting in the district to discuss the issue was expected for Thursday, too late for deadline.
   Districts may not use the funds toward prior school years’ pension obligations, however, the funds can be used for pension payments during the 2010-2011 school year, however.
   Other prohibited uses include administrative costs for operating the superintendent’s or board of education offices, including salaries and benefits of employees working in the board offices, and payments for financial services, district program planners and researchers, and human resource services.
   The funds will be available after Aug. 10 2011 — when the Education Jobs Act was enacted — and are meant to be used during the 2010-2011 school year. A district with funds remaining after the school year concludes will have until Sept. 30, 2012 to use the funds.
   Since the funds will only be available until 2012, Acting Department of Education Commissioner Rochelle R. Hendricks advised districts to avoid creating programs that would need to be cut once the funding is gone.
Packet Group writer Eileen Oldfield contributed to this story. Contact Staff Writer Geoffrey Wertime at [email protected].