PRINCETON: Tentative school budget at $62 million

By Stephanie Vaccaro, Staff Writer
   The Board of Education for Princeton Regional Schools has decided that $62,190,302 should be raised for the tentative school district budget for 2011-2012.
   ”This is not the official presentation, which will be at the next meeting,” said Rebecca Cox, president of the board. The budget hearing will be held on March 22.
   ”Tonight is only the submission of the tentative budget for county review,” said Ms. Wilson.
   The tentative budget will be reviewed at the county level for compliance, meaning that it must be reviewed by Executive County Superintendent Samuel Stewart of the New Jersey Department of Education. Once it has been approved, then the figures will go public.
   Ms. Wilson spoke about the meaning behind the budget.
   The proposed budget does not slash programs for students, nor does it repeat the losses from 2011, Ms. Wilson said.
   ”It does work within the Legislature’s caps, which have been set by law in the last 12 months,” said Ms. Wilson. “Our caps are significantly lower than last year. Most of the public will recognize the fact that last year’s budget had to be set within a 4 percent cap, with a little bit of variance.”
   ”This year the law is half of that with a 2 percent cap, with a variance for health care costs,” said Ms. Wilson. “The budget does and must carry with it 80 percent of the pain of last year’s loss of state aid. We lost $3.7 million in state aid last year. We don’t recoup that. It is a revenue stream that is not recouped. We carry that forward forevermore.”
   The district did receive about 20 percent of that loss back, said Ms. Wilson.
   That does not allow for reinstatement for programs that were cut.
   The budget does include three additional faculty positions for the high school to cover overcrowded classrooms, primarily in math and social studies, said Ms. Wilson.
   It provides a very minimal base for technology, one of the district’s greatest needs, said Ms. Wilson. It provides very little for capital projects, only top priority health and safety issues, said Ms. Wilson.
   ”It must, by law, include significantly increased costs for charter schools,” said Ms. Wilson. “Our costs will increase $342,000.”
   ”Our total charter school cost in this budget is $4.7 million,” said Ms. Wilson.
   She also said that there was now a need to begin looking more aggressively for private revenue streams.
   ”It is a 2.852 percent increase over last year,” said Ms. Wilson.
   The percent above is due to increased health costs, she said.
   The basic tax impact of the proposed budget would be $102 for the township on a home valued at $827,000 and $97 for the borough for a home at $740,000.
   The budget does not cut faculty or programs for students.
   ”It is a balanced budget,” she said.
   ”We feel very fortunate that we’ve been able to balance the budget without doing a lot of harm to our students,” said Daniel Haughton, a member of the board’s Finance Committee.
   ”We feel very strongly that we have a financial responsibility to the taxpayers,” said Mr. Haughton.