EDISON — Township students looking to get a finance lesson may want to look to their own school district, which is on target to become debt-free within the next five years.
The district is set to pay off its last $3.5 million in bonding. That means, according to the district, that Edison would become the first pre-kindergarten to 12th grade district in the state to claim such a financial status.
Superintendent Richard O’Malley said the district has consistently taken a conservative approach to spending. He said it’s challenging to the meet the needs of both taxpayers and the students, but it’s important.
If O’Malley’s plan of phasing out existing bonding by 2020 comes to fruition, the win for the taxpayers will be a reduction of $88 a year in taxes on the township’s average assessed home of $177,300.
“This is a real way for us to give significant tax relief to Edison taxpayers,” O’Malley said.
In fact, that savings could increase by another $40 based on the consolidation of longterm debt.
“I get it that residents don’t want to hear it anymore; they want to see it,” the superintendent said.
At the same time, O’Malley said, the district has become a leader in technology and has been adding new staff, programs and building additions on three township schools — all while its population keeps growing. In fact, the district just announced that Menlo Park Elementary School will receive a $6.3 million expansion.
How are O’Malley and the district able to accomplish it all?
“What we focus on doing is having a long-term financial plan,” O’Malley said. “We really take a look at zero-based budgeting.”
That means making strategic choices through a pay-as-you-go mindset about programs and staffing. For bigger projects, the district is able to tap into capital reserves. The district also has an emergency fund for unanticipated issues. O’Malley said his goal is put the district in a “better place when I leave than when I arrived.”
Still, the current fiscal fitness of the district doesn’t necessarily mean it will never go back into debt after 2020. O’Malley said as part of his long-term thinking, he’s trying to put the district in the right financial shape so that when it does have needs that exceed an existing budget — a new school, for example — taxpayers will know that the request isn’t just a result of poor planning.
“That’s a stronger message than to go back to the taxpayer and say ‘We need, we need, we need,’” O’Malley said, adding, “I think we’re a model for school districts to do this.”
In fact, he said, it’s one he said will spread within Edison itself.
“Am I optimistic that others will follow the lead? I hope so,” he said.