CHESTERFIELD:Town faces 3.6-cent tax rqate hike

Old school up for sale, bids start at $2.1 million

By Amber Cox
   CHESTERFIELD – Residents would face a 3.6-cent tax rate hike under the $9.4 million tentative budget approved by the Board of Education on March 1 and sent to the county superintendent for review. The tax levy is $6.5 million.
   A house assessed at $396,472 will see a $142.73 tax increase for the operating budget and $170.48 for the debt service for a total increase of $313.21.
   The new school building on Saddle Way that is 200 percent larger than the old building is playing a large role in the budget.
   ”As you know we have a larger building that we’re maintaining and operating so you’ll see some of the budgeting that’s affected because of that,” board President Brian Meincke said.
   The whole town has also gone through a reassessment or redistribution and the average house was assessed at a lower rate for the coming year, falling from $449,400 to $396,472.
   The debt service also played a role in budget preparation. The district is still responsible for paying for the old school and new school’s debt.
   ”Debt service is important because that is definitely a factor in our budget,” Superintendent Ellen McHenry said. “Debt service is the payment of long-term debt and at this point we are still paying for the old school and we’re paying for the new building.”
   The district owes $177,000 on the old building and is paying $90,000 toward it this year, leaving an $87,000 debt.
   The district has the old school building at 295 Bordentown- Chesterfield Road and its 21 acres up for sale and is accepting bids. The minimum required bid is $2.1 million and the bidding deadline is March 24. The school is in the agricultural zone. No bids had been received as of Tuesday.
   The district is consulting with the county to determine how it would spend any proceeds from the sale of the building, Louise Zoilkowski, business administrator.
   However, Ms. McHenry said the board plans to pay the $465,000 principal payment for the new school and old school with unexpended bond proceeds.
   ”We can’t use that for the interest,” Mr. Meincke said. “We can only apply it to the principal.”
   Ms. McHenry said the tentative budget maintains all of the core educational programs while maintaining the reductions in extracurricular activities that were put in place in last year’s budget.
   ”It meets the needs of our steady enrollment growth and includes operations expenses for a building 3.5 times larger than our former school,” she said. “We’ll be opening all three floors next year. Currently, we’re inhabiting two of the floors.”
   There are also allowable adjustments for the set 2 percent state cap.
   ”In our case, because we have a trend of high enrollment growth over the past five years, the state builds into its formula the ability to raise the tax levy above 2 percent,” Ms. McHenry said.
   State aid also played a large factor in the budget.
   ”This year, when we did our initial budget a couple of weeks ago, we actually counted on no state aid because we weren’t sure what the state was going to do,” Ms. McHenry said. “We were told to expect either a flat rate or a decrease. We were pleasantly surprised to see that we had the $62,900 from last year plus 1 percent of last year’s operating budget which gives us a total of $126,000 in state aid.”
   Chesterfield has had steady enrollment growth since 2007, going from the upper 300s to approaching 600 students.
   Enrollment growth is calling for two new teachers to be budgeted for next year. At the beginning of the budget process the board planned for three new teachers but reduced the numbers.
   ”We anticipate one teacher definitely being in second grade and a second teacher in second grade or fourth grade,” Ms. McHenry said. “We’ll look at the numbers as we get closer to the end of the school year to see where we need to put those teachers.”
   Transportation is being reduced for the coming year and will go from seven bus routes to six. Ms. McHenry said it will mean a little more time on the bus but it won’t be unreasonable. There will still be some empty seats on the six buses and a number of the new students coming in are in the walking zone, according to Ms. McHenry.
   ”I think we saw earlier this year that on seven buses we had a lot of empty seats,” Mr. Meincke said. “One of our board members brought that to our attention so we looked at it again with regard to the increased time if we were to reduce it to six buses and I’m please that we were able to do that.”
   There were increases in the areas of curriculum, technology support and student activities.
   ”We anticipate doing a school play next year,” Ms. McHenry said. “This year we did not have a play or a variety show because of the move in the middle of the year. We had lowered our extracurricular line-item because of that