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SOUTH BRUNSWICK: BOE starts challenging year

By Charles W. Kim, Managing Editor

   Budgeting for the next year and contract negotiations will likely keep Board of Education members busy at the start of 2013 if Monday night’s reorganization meeting is any indication.
   Business Administrator Anthony Tonzini administered the oath of office to newly elected member Peter St. Vincent and returning members Barry Nathanson and Dr. Stephen Parker to start the meeting in front of more than 200 teachers clad in South Brunswick Education Association, black and gold, T-shirts.
   It was the second consecutive meeting that the teachers attended as a show of solidarity with the union during contract negotiations with the district, according to union president Chris Hines.
   Mr. Hines said the union has been working without a contract since June 30 and that, while currently at an impasse with the district, he believes a settlement could be close.
   The next scheduled meeting between the district and the union is Jan. 22, according to Mr. Hines.
   After being re-appointed as president of the board, Dr. Parker read a statement thanking his supporters in the November election that returned him to the panel and then responding to the show of solidarity demonstrated by the teachers during the last two meetings.
   ”I come from a family of educators,” Dr. Parker said. “I understand what it takes to be a good teacher and I know, first hand, the value a good teacher can make in one’s life.”
   He said that if he could, and had the money, he would hire the best teachers, staff, and supplies possible to provide a quality education to the students.
   ”(I would do that) if I had the money,” Dr. Parker said. “But I don’t and neither does this community.”
   He then compared the district to a bridge spanning a gorge. During good economic times, he said, the bridge is “sturdy and wide” and allows for room to give and take for those going across the gorge.
   In today’s tougher economic climate, however, Dr. Parker said the bridge has shrunk to a single strand of rope that the district must walk in a balanced way to provide a good education at a price the community can afford.
   ”It has become critical that we make prudent financial decisions to ensure our children receive the education they need and deserve, but at a price we can afford,” Dr. Parker said.
   He said it was Mr. Hines and the union that had put off negotiations earlier in the year, and now the union is requesting a state moderator, of which there are few, to come into the process.
   He also criticized Mr. Hines as viewing the process as “a chess game” and questioned Mr. Hines earlier stated desire to “not negotiate in public” while having the teachers attend the meetings in force.
   Mr. Hines spoke during the public portion of the meeting and said he took offense to the accusation that he was playing some kind of game with the negotiations and that it was not the union that was holding the negotiations up.
   Following the meeting, Mr. Hines said any delay was simply due to the fact that he needed to bring the variety of contract issues to the almost 700 union members for consensus before he could properly represent them at a meeting.
   He said he was more than willing to negotiate and is hoping the matter could be settled very soon.
   In addition to labor negotiations, officials are looking to crafting the new budget in a climate where values in the township, despite some signs of recovery, are still diminishing, according to officials.
   Drops in the value of the community in recent years have meant severe staff cuts district-wide and increases to the property tax rate to keep up, according to officials.
   Last year, the board voted to not only move the school elections to November instead of April, but also to have the ability to pass the $136 million school budget without a vote in the community.
   State law allows the board to pass a budget as long as it falls under a state-mandated two percent cap.
   Last year’s budget was the first passed in this manner.