HILLSBOROUGH: School calendar shuffled to meet budget timeline

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   School board officials have moved their two March meetings to stick to deadlines to produce a school budget for the 2013-14 school year.
   The board now will meet Monday, March 4 (instead of the 11th), to introduce a budget, and Thursday, March 21, (instead of Monday, the 25th) for the public hearing on the budget.
   The tight deadline is much the same as previous years with a big exception in mid-April.
   This year, for the first time, there will be no public yes or no vote on the amount of money property owners would be taxed to pay to balance the budget.
   The board voted Jan. 28 to do away with the up-or-down vote on the budget and move candidates’ races to the fall ballot.
   Last year, local property taxes comprised 74 percent of the revenue in the school budget.
   Board President Thomas Kinst asked board members to come prepared to the Feb. 25 meeting to discuss their values and priorities in a budget. This has proven to identify specifics projects members would like to see funded as well as express their philosophies in making decisions.
   Gov. Chris Christie will give his state budget address Tuesday, Feb. 26. By law, he must release the next year’s state aid figures for schools by Thursday, Feb. 28.
   Last year, state aid comprised about $25 million of the $113.8 million total revenue of the budget.
   At that point, school officials will know how much revenue they have to work with. Administrators say they have established the potential spending side of the budget and will be ready to make decisions on what’s in and what’s out.
   Much of that will happen Saturday, March 2, when the three members of the Finance Committee and Board President Thomas Kinst hunker down. They should come up with a spending plan that will be presented to the full board March 4.
   The board will make a decision on the tentative budget, which must be sent to the county executive superintendent of schools by Thursday, March 7.
   The school budget will be printed in the Beacon issue of March 14, and the school will post a “user friendly” version of the budget on line by Monday, March 18.
   Residents can use the two documents to prepare questions and comments for the public hearing March 21.
   The Thursday meeting would be held to avoid having the hearing on the first night of the spring recess when, presumably, some residents might be out of town.