BORDENTOWN TOWNSHIP: Hearing set for proposed $40M school budget

By Nicole M. Wells, Special Writer
   BORDENTOWN — At its meeting March 6, the Board of Education unanimously approved submitting the proposed $40 million budget for the 2013-14 school year to the county superintendent of schools.
   The proposed spending plan includes a number of changes from last year’s budget.
   Should the budget pass as proposed, the average homeowner in Bordentown Township would pay $4,367 in school taxes, which is about $142.53 more than last year. In Bordentown City, the average homeowner would pay $3,613, which is about $193.79 more than last year. In Fieldsboro, the average homeowner would pay $3,219, which is about $207.95 more than last year, according to statistics released by the board.
   The estimated increase in the tax rate for Bordentown Township is 6 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. For Bordentown City, the estimated tax rate increase is 8 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, and for Fieldsboro, the estimated tax rate increase is 10 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
   The public hearing on the proposed 2013-14 budget is slated for tonight (March 21) at 7 p.m. in the high school library.
   In the proposed budget, there is an $83,000 increase in funding for improvement of instructional services, which board secretary Eloi Richardson said is to provide “additional educational leadership support to address expanding and evolving state-directed teacher and principal evaluation requirements.”
   In the 2013-14 school year, the Christie administration will begin implementing its new statewide educator evaluation system, known as AchieveNJ. The increase in funding is necessary, Mr. Richardson said, to help the district meet these new requirements.
   There is also a decrease in the proposed budget in the amount spent on operation and maintenance of plant services. This includes the maintenance and custodial building security staffs, repairs and maintenance of property and equipment, utilities and property insurance, according to Mr. Richardson.
   The decrease, he said, is primarily due to a “decline in (the amount spent on) utilities from new consortium agreements and solar production.”
   According to Mr. Richardson, the district is a member of the Alliance for Competitive Energy Services. Established in 1999, ACES is a joint purchasing system whereby school districts join forces to create a large block of buying power for the purpose of purchasing electricity and natural gas from third-party suppliers instead of local public utilities.
   Statewide, the program has delivered roughly $50 million in savings to its member districts over the past two years, according to the New Jersey School Boards Association.
   ACES has approximately 400 member school districts and is the largest energy-aggregation program in the state, according to the New Jersey School Boards Association, which oversees the administration of the program along with the New Jersey Association of School Business Officials and the New Jersey Association of School Administrators.
   According to its website, the district operates a 395-kilowatt-rated solar panel array on the roof of Bordentown Regional High School. The array collects radiant solar energy and converts it into usable alternating current electricity, which then is directed into the electrical system at the high school.
   According to Mr. Richardson, solar production at the high school is one of the reasons for the decrease in the amount spent on utilities.
   In the proposed budget, employee benefits are going up $500,000, which Mr. Richardson said is mainly due to “an approximate 13 percent increase in rates for the 2013 calendar year and expected for the 2013-14 budget year.”
   In the 2012-13 school year, there was an unexpected increase in the amount of state aid dollars the district received, Mr. Richardson said. The increase was applied for one-time building improvements.
   For the 2012-13 school year, the district was able to undertake about $968,000 of capital improvements, including “major ground improvements at McFarland Intermediate School,” he said.
   For 2013-14, the district is only planning on $468,000, with most of that earmarked for technology improvements.
   There is a $150,000 increase in the proposed budget for child study teams. Mr. Richardson said this is because the student body population “with auditory impairments is growing an increased need for educational interpreters and teachers of the deaf services.”
   The district also is adding a speech therapist, and there is a need for increased in-depth evaluations to comply with Department of Education regulations, he said.