HILLSBOROUGH: School board faces outsourcing, slowing computer purchases

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   School board members on Monday night faced a proposed 2014-15 school budget with cuts and costs that no one liked.
   Should the school fire its nighttime custodians and hire a company that would supply lesser-paid replacements, without benefits?
   How about contracting with a company that would hire substitute teachers, including long-term ones, at a lesser pay?
   Should the school slow its vaunted technology initiative that is on target to bring a computer tablet to every student in grades 5-12 next year?
   Or should the district go even further in using a budget loophole and raise taxes even more than proposed?
   School board members, sitting with a multi-page binder of facts and figures they had received that day, couldn’t agree.
   But they had little choice but to adopt some budget to submit to the county executive superintendent of schools the next day. So they revoted and adopted a tentative — we can change this, members stressed — budget of $117.7 million dollars.
   The budget would have the effect of raising the local property tax levy for schools by 4.3 percent, or $252 for the average” home assessment of $363,900.
   Members promised to revisit the budget in detail by the April 28 public hearing date. For the second year, the public won’t have a vote on the tax levy; that was foregone last year.
   The budget was kept at $117 million even using a wrinkle in the state law that caps annual property tax increases at 2 percent. The same law allows public bodies that stay under the cap to “bank” the difference each year, with the possibility of calling upon those amounts in future years.
   That will happen this year, with the proposed budget going over the 2 percent and using $1.3 million in “banked” money. Earlier versions of a proposed budget went even further, board members said.
   Superintendent Jorden Schiff said the budget included adding an expanded Chinese language program, repairing at least four roofs (with state aid) and sticking with the plan to give Chromebooks to every 5-12 grader next fall. The budget would also hire five more technology advisors to maintain equipment and assist staff in using computers in their organization and in the classroom.
   Due to enrollment pressures, five special education teachers must be hired, and health care costs are skyrocketing, Dr. Schiff said. He predicted a 15 percent increase health premium hike for the first half of 2015. He also predicted a 28 percent increase in energy costs.
   Revenue isn’t keeping apace with higher costs, either. State aid only increased by about $140,000 to $25.7 million. Dr. Schiff said that the township lost $120 million in tax ratables this year. That means that fewer people have to pick up the more costs.
   Board President Thomas Kinst asked Dr. Schiff for an assessment on various levels of cutting back on the lease-purchase of computers and extending out the timeline for giving computers to all students. He asked for data to show how computers affected individual students’ performance in learning.
   Complicating the fact is that the district might be forced to rent Chromebooks to take a national assessment and readiness test next year. The district could avoid a rental cost by sticking on the path to lease-purchasing them.
   For every $100,000 reduction in the budget, it would reduce the tax levy by $3 on that average house, school leaders said.
   Hillsborough Education Association President Daynon Blevins said the problem was with Trenton failing to keep pace with aid. He urged the board to use even more of its “banked” cap to avoid laying off custodians and substitutes.
   Board member Jennifer Haley said going beyond the 2 percent tax cap tempts losing faith with taxpayers, who believed they were getting some property tax relief with limits on the budget. She urged less spending, and not “punishing” taxpayers.
   The newest board member, Dev Dutta, said “everything should be on the table.”
   Board member Christopher Pulsifer summed up the situation by saying, “We’re between several rocks and a hard place.”