Members of two school boards tussle over tuition

By MAUREEN DAYE
Correspondent

MILLSTONE — The members of two school boards recently found themselves at odds over a situation involving tuition payments.

The Millstone Township K-8 School District Board of Education has a send-receive relationship with the Upper Freehold Regional School District (UFRSD) Board of Education in which high school age residents of Millstone attend Allentown High School in the UFRSD.

In 2015-16, Millstone will pay $12,433 per pupil to send about 600 high school students to Allentown High School, according to information provided by Millstone administrators when the board adopted its 2015-16 budget earlier this year.

Millstone board President Margaret Gordon said no one had an issue with the proposed tuition as it was set and believed it was fair and reasonable. The concern was that the tuition could be raised, she said.

The issue was discussed at a July 27 Millstone board meeting.

Representatives of the UFRSD board attended the Millstone board’s Aug. 24 meeting after watching a video of the July 27 meeting.

Gordon said Millstone board members were hearing for the first time that UFRSD board members were expressing there was a percentage determined by the state, regarding a limit.

“This is first time you are saying this,” she said. “We were not aware of that.”

During the July 27 meeting, Millstone board member Amy Jacobson was criticized by Superintendent of Schools Scott Feder and Gordon for her stance in a straw vote with the UFRSD board on a negotiation point in the send-receive agreement. In short, Jacobson’s opinion was to eliminate a 2 percent cap on tuition.

Jacobson represents the Millstone school district on the UFRSD board.

Gordon told Jacobson she should have abstained from the straw vote in Upper Freehold and instructed her to speak with Feder on matters where she did not know the stance of the Millstone board.

“Dr. Jacobson was confused about that (2 percent cap) and I told her then she should abstain. Even if in agreement, she represents Millstone,” Gordon said.

Jacobson said the question before the UFRSD board was not a binding action item, but a straw vote. She said Millstone would pay exactly what it costs to educate its students at Allentown High School without the 2 percent cap in place.

That way, if costs went over the 2 percent cap, Allentown and Upper Freehold Township taxpayers — who make up the UFRSD’s sending municipalities — would not be forced to subsidize the cost to educate Millstone students, Jacobson said.

At the Aug. 24 meeting in Millstone, UFRSD board Vice President Rick Smith took issue with the response to Jacobson by the Millstone board, which he characterized as “rough” without mentioning the names of individuals who delivered that response.

He took issue with the nature of some of the remarks that were made at the July 27 meeting of the Millstone board.

“There were a lot of disparaging comments made about our district that I feel are unfair and untrue,” Smith said.

Smith said when board members speak in a manner that is inflammatory, it is important to take responsibility, particularly because videos of school board meetings are placed online for the community at large to watch and because people may comment on those meetings in newspapers.

Smith said comments that were made by Millstone board members were “unbecoming of our district and not true at all. You said the (tuition is) going up every year … (it has) gone down four out of six years … Even if (the tuition) goes up, there is a statute that limits (the increase).”

He told Feder, “your concerns and construct that we may swing 10 percent is inflammatory conversation. We cannot (do that) by statute.”

Smith said the UFRSD board wants to partner with Millstone and does not want an adversarial relationship.

UFRSD board President Patricia Hogan supported Smith’s comments. Hogan said she was “more than a little” disappointed about the nature of some of the comments that wre made at the July 27 meeting in Millstone.

Hogan said she believes there is a general lack of understanding about what the tuition calculation is, how it fits into the UFRSD budget and how it relates to the tax levy and tuition in Millstone.

After the meeting, Feder said he believes the issue arose from a “clear misuse of terminology.”

“I believe (it) will best be suited for a joint meeting between the two districts. The Upper Freehold board members went back and forth on terminology, substituting the term ‘cap’ for tuition regulation.

“Of course the Millstone board members and administration know of this regulation, but to be clear, the Millstone position is this is not the same as a cap, which our district is bound by. Without getting deeper into this, a night devoted to this topic will be enlightening for all parties in Upper Freehold and Millstone,” Feder said.