By John Tredrea, Special Writer
In a well-attended meeting marked by an intense discussion of who will pay for lighting on Ackerson Field at Central High School (CHS), the Hopewell Valley school board voted unanimously Monday night to adopt a $76.8 million budget for 2013-14.
The estimated tax impacts of the adopted budget — which under the new state law that allows November school board elections and does not require voter approval of the school tax levy (unless over cap) — are:
— Hopewell Township’s school tax rate will go up 4 cents per $100 of assessed property value to $1.45. For a township house assessed at $400,000, the budget will bring a school tax bill totaling $5,800 for 2013-14.
— Hopewell Borough’s school tax rate will go up 7 cents, to $1.36. For the owner of a house assessed at $400,000, this means a school tax bill of $5,440.
— Pennington’s school tax rate will increase 3 cents, to $1.41. For the owner of a Pennington residence, assessed at $400,000, this means a school tax bill of $5,640.
The differing tax impacts for the school district’s three municipalities result from use of a state-mandated formula that takes into account the disparity between the assessed value and market value of properties.
The budget eliminates five teaching and 10 paraprofessional positions, due to declining enrollment. Two subject area supervisor positions also will be cut.
Included in the budget are curricular improvements in writing and Middle School language arts and mathematics, as well as planned facility maintenance projects and technology upgrades.
The budget also includes a 17 percent increase in the cost of staff benefits, as dictated by the State Employee Health Benefits plan, and a 2.2 percent increase in teachers’ salaries dictated by their contract. More than 75 percent of the budget is made up of instructional costs, which include staff salaries, benefits and instructional supplies.
The budget includes $232,000 to secure entrances at all district schools. Upgrades will include secured stairways, as well as check-in kiosks requiring visitors to present government-issued identification to gain access.
AFTER HEARING COMMENTS from many members of the public, all of whom said the lights at Ackerson Field should be put up as soon as possible, the board agreed to put back into the budget $80,000 for the first year of a five-year lease deal that will allow the district to install and maintain lights at Ackerson Field, an $1 million turf field at CHS.
The bottom line of the budget was not changed as a result of putting back the $80,000, which had been cut during previous board actions on the budget.
The bottom line did not change because the board agreed to reduce, by $80,000, the appropriation of funds for installation of a watering system for athletic fields at Timberlane Middle School.
”That work can be done in phases,” board President Lisa Wolff said. Cutting $80,000 from the watering system project leaves the district with $120,000 to spend this year on the watering system.
There is a condition attached to the board’s agreement to include $80,000 for the lighting at the turf field in this year’s budget.
That condition is that a significant portion of the cost of installing and using the lights not be covered by taxpayer money, but by other sources of revenue instead.
Those sources could include gate receipts from games, concession stand revenue from games and advertising at the field.
The board decided that none of the $80,000 allocated for the lights would be spend until the board has reached agreement involving the stakeholders — likely to include the Hopewell Valley Recreation Foundation, which raised the money for the turf field — on how much of the cost should be covered by sources other than tax revenues.
Board member Stephen Keen, who chairs the board’s Finance Committee, said in a written statement, that the non-tax revenues should cover at least half the cost of the lights.
No final decision on that issue was made by the board Monday night.
