SOUTH HUNTERDON: New K-12 district’s budget proposal: $22 million

Public hearing is Monday, April 28

By John Tredrea, Special Writer
   A $21,995,619 budget for the 2014-15 school year was tentatively adopted by a unanimous vote of the South Hunterdon Regional School District’s school board Monday night. With the recently formed regional board rotating where its meetings are held, Monday night’s session was at Stockton Borough School.
   This will be the first budget to combine the middle/high school budget with the elementary school districts in Lambertville, West Amwell and Stockton.
   A public hearing and adoption vote on the proposed spending plan for the regional K-12 district’s first year is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday, April 28, at the West Amwell Elementary School building at 1417 Route 179.
   Kerry Sevilis, business administrator of the regional district, said it is still unknown what the school tax rates would be if the budget is adopted in its current form.
   ”We’ll be ready to say what the tax rates will be at the April 28 meeting, when we’ll do a detailed presentation on the budget,” Ms. Sevilis said.
   The earliest the new district can begin official operation as an independent entity is July 1. Board President Dan Seiter said all indications are that the new district will be able to run on its own at that date.
   Just in case it isn’t, he said Monday night, the tentatively adopted budget has been structured so the four existing districts that are being combined into the single regional district can continue to function on their own after July 1 should that prove necessary.
   The historic consolidation of the four districts — Lambertville, West Amwell, Stockton and South Hunterdon Regional High School — was approved in a referendum last September.
   A key step in getting the new district ready to go was completed Monday night, when the school board voted unanimously to recognize a new teachers union, the South Hunterdon Regional Education Association (SHREA). The members of the SHREA were formerly members of bargaining units at the high school and the elementary schools in Lambertville, West Amwell and Stockton.
   Wanting to set up and operate a new website for the regional district, the board voted unanimously Monday night to hire the firm of SharpSchool as the district’s web hosting provider, at a cost of $10,000 for the first year.
   A grant is expected to lower the cost to $7,000 for the second year, board member Celeste Mosby said.