By Eileen Oldfield, Staff Writer
Education Jobs Act sends $873,097 to Hillsborough
Local school officials are beginning to consider how to best use the funds they will receive from the Education Jobs Act, approved by Congress in August to help support cash-strapped school districts across the country.
And of the $262,742,643 New Jersey will receive through the act, Hillsborough stands to receive $873,097 and Manville, $178,387.
”Currently, we are assessing the best possible educational use for this one-time funding opportunity and the time frame in which it must be utilized,” Interim Hillsborough Superintendent Scott Rocco said.
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.
Both districts’ administrators are still deciding how the best use for the extra money, they said.
”Allowing funds to be used through September 2012 provides us an opportunity to assess our upcoming budget needs,” Mr. Rocco said. “In light of the $4.9 million in state funding reductions last year, the district must look to address our current and future budget constraints while keeping in mind that these funds are temporary and do not solve the financial issues currently facing local school districts and the state.”
”We just got the notification yesterday (Monday),” Manville Superintendent Dr. Johanna Ruberto said. “Right now, we are in the early stages of planning how we will use the grant. We have a meeting scheduled for Monday to review the parameters of the grant.”
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 became available after Aug. 10 — 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.
”Similarly, I encourage your district to avoid spending decisions that would significantly grow future-year obligations that could prove to be unsustainable,” she said in a letter to superintendents. “In other words, these one-time funds should not only preserve critical jobs, they should provide your district with the breathing room needed to plan for educationally sound, balanced budgets in the austere days to come. It is unwise to assume that there will be additional streams of federal jobs money in planning for the future.”

