ROBBINSVILLE: School taxes going up

Robbinsville Board of Education introduces 2012 budget

By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
   ROBBINSVILLE — The Board of Education introduced a total $41.97 million budget for 2012-13 that would increase school taxes about $177 a year for the average assessed home in the township.
   The budget, which was introduced by a 7-1 vote Feb. 28, would set a tax rate of $1.479 per $100 in assessed value. A home assessed at the township average of $385,000 would pay $5,694 in school taxes.
   School Business Administrator Robert DeVita said the district would be receiving $2.2 million in state aid this year, which means the state funding formula is requiring local property taxpayers to fund 95 percent of the district’s budget.
   The budget includes a $36,277,199 million general operating fund; a $5,215,812 debt service fund; and a $482,028 special revenue fund. The latter fund includes money from school facility rentals, shared service agreements, student activity fees and the continuing education and R.E.D. extended-day program.
   The total tax levy — the amount of taxes needed to support operating expenses and debt service — is $37,017,898. This includes a $32.2 million general fund tax levy and a $4.81 million debt service tax levy.
   Budget highlights include funding the equivalent of 6.5 new teaching positions, which still leaves the district 10 teachers shy of 2009-10 staffing levels when 26 people lost their jobs due to steep budget cuts.
   ”We’re still not even halfway back from where we were three years ago, and enrollment is even higher today,” said Carol Boyne, the vice president of the Board of Education.
   Enrollment at Robbinsville High School alone has increased by 300 students since 2009-10, and some history classes now have 30 to 35 students.
   Schools Superintendent Steve Mayer said the budget would allocate funds to hire two instructional assistants; a math/science teacher for grade six; a high school history teacher; a special education teacher for Pond Road Middle School; and a full-time high school guidance counselor. The budget also provides funding to increase a part-time Pond Road counselor to full-time, which in terms of the budget is the equivalent of adding a 0.5 staff position.
   Money also is provided for replacing old computers and the central server. Dr. Mayer said 56 percent of the district’s computers are more than 6 years old, and the central server is at the end of its useful life.
   Other budget priorities include funding to train teachers in the Reading Recovery program to provide literacy support to children who are struggling.
   The district, which had been expecting flat state aid for 2012-13, will use an unexpected $292,885 increase in state aid to reduce the debt service tax levy, Mr. DeVita said. Without this move, the projected 2012-13 school tax increase would have been $40 higher because of an increase in debt service costs.
   Mr. DeVita said that although the state announced last week that Robbinsville would be getting $319,386 in increased aid, the net increase was really only $292,885 because the state also assessed the district $26,501 for the state Schools Development Authority bond payments.
   A public hearing and adoption vote on the budget will be held Tuesday, March 27, at 7 p.m. at the high school.
   Robbinsville residents will not be voting on the school budget in April because state law now allows boards of education to have the final say on budgets as long as the general fund levy increase is 2 percent or less. (Only districts that agree to move their elections for school board seats to November are permitted to do this).
   However, the law also allows the 2 percent cap to be adjusted upward to cover enrollment increases and health-care costs that rise above the rate of inflation. These automatic cap adjustments are the reason the district can increase its general fund tax levy by 2.2.percent and still be $355,484 “under” cap.
   A hard 2 percent cap would have limited Robbinsville’s proposed tax levy increase to $630,034 over the current year’s tax levy, however, the automatic adjustments for higher enrollment ($72,485) and health care ($355,484) brings the maximum allowable increase in the tax levy to $1,058,003. The district is using $702,519 of the allowable $1 million levy increase.
   ”We’re not taking as much as we could,” Dr. Mayer said.
   ”It’s something you can take or you don’t have to take,” he said, referring to the cap adjustments. “If you don’t take them, you are permitted to bank them for three years.”
   The $355,484 “banked” cap adjustment is not part of the 2012-13 tax levy nor will it be collected from taxpayers unless the district decides at some point within the next three years to put that allowable levy increase back into its budget.
   ”We may never use it,” Mr. DeVita said.