By Frank Mustac, Special Writer
Hopewell Valley Regional Board of Education approved a tentative $80,717,425 budget for the 2016-17 school year by unanimous vote on Monday.
The state’s superintendent of Mercer County schools is now set to review the proposed spending plan.
A public budget discussion is scheduled for Monday, April 18, and a public hearing and final budget adoption vote by the school board will take place on Monday, April 25.
The general fund, which does not include the debt service, is $75,009,013, of which $69,391,867 would be paid by local taxes. This year’s tentative general fund budget is up by 0.8 percent, which is the lowest operating budget increase in the history of the district, Superintendent Smith said Monday.
State law places a 2-percent cap on how much a school district’s tax levy for its general fund may be increased over the previous school year.
“This is the second year in a row that we have come in below cap,” Dr. Smith said.
The debt service for 2016-17 is $4,760,138. Local taxes would pay for $4,758,384 of that amount.
The tentative budget calls for the school tax levy for Hopewell Borough property owners to go up by one penny compared to last year, to $1.54 per $100 of assessed property value.
Pennington Borough’s tax levy would remain the same as a year ago at $1.55. The school tax levy in Hopewell Township would increase by 3 cents, to $1.55.
The proposed budget allows the school district to “maintain all existing student programs and services,” according to the superintendent.
“We did not include any large-scale capital projects in our budget,” Dr. Smith said. “Our capital projects have been removed in preparation of a referendum.
The superintendent was referring to a $35 million-plus school bond referendum scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 27. If voters in Hopewell Borough, Pennington and Hopewell Township pass the referendum, the bond would fund repair work, construction and other capital improvements at several schools.
“We still have a number of roof projects that need to be done, and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) that needs to be upgraded, windows that need to be replaced, and improving our energy efficiency,” the superintendent said.
Responding to a question asked by school board member Bruce Gunther about what would happened if voters reject the referendum in September, Dr. Smith said that “it would not mean anything in this budget, but in subsequent budgets we would need to be putting all of those projects in.”
“It will end up costing the taxpayers more,” he said, explaining that a state program called debt service aid would pay for a sizable portion of the bond (about $13 million), and that the school district would not receive that aid should the referendum fail. The debt service aid program is part of the Educational Facilities Construction and Financing Act passed in 2000.
Dr. Smith also said the identified projects would not be completed in a timely manner if voters were to reject the referendum.
“For example, we need to replace those roofs at the high school,” he said, “Every time it rains, we’re crossing our fingers that another leak doesn’t (happen).”