By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The Princeton school district, facing rising enrollment and growing health benefits and other costs, has proposed increasing spending and raising taxes in a $95 million draft budget for the fiscal year starting in July., At a budget workshop Tuesday, officials lamented the extra $826,266 that it will have to provide the Princeton Charter School as part of the phased-in enrollment expansion at the school of 76 students that acting state Education Commissioner Kimberley Harrington has approved. The first group, of 54 students, are expected to enter later this year, with 22 students next year., The school district is challenging Harrington’s decision in court. But school board member William D. Hare, also a Charter School parent, raised whether the district should ask the Charter School to phase in the new students over a longer period of time, rather than two years., “How about if we ask them to do zero?” school board President Patrick Sullivan chimed in. He later touched on the Charter School and the school district merging., “Well if they don’t want their taxes to go up and they want to do something good for the town, they could come back and agree to merge the two systems together under one umbrella,” Sullivan said. “We’ve offered to do it in a way where they would have a lot of autonomy.”, Paul Josephson, president of the Charter School Board of Trustees, released a statement this week offering an olive branch., “Keeping with our promise, PCS wishes to work collaboratively with Princeton Public Schools to ensure that this expansion is implemented with minimal impact,” he said. “We have heard the community and following up on three earlier meetings with the Superintendent and PPS officials, we await the board’s response to our invitation to renew those discussions and work together in the best interests of all Princeton public school students.”, Spending by the district is projected to be $3.7 million more than the current year’s budget., Even with a 5-percent tax hike, officials face a budget gap of $388,115 that they will have to close to balance the spending plan. Taxes, at the average home assessed value of $821,771, would jump by $363.89, budget documents showed this week. The tax levy, overall, would be $79.4 million, the bulk of where the district gets its revenue., But one school official warned of the impact that escalating taxes would have on the makeup of Princeton., “To me, I don’t think it’s either politically acceptable or morally acceptable to have a five-percent-tax increase on people, especially for the Charter School,” Sullivan said. “I think it’s important, to me anyway, that we don’t become a town where it’s full of really wealthy people who can afford whatever taxes we pass on to them and then people who maybe got a housing voucher or some sort of special thing that allows them to live here in an affordable unit or something and nobody else. That’s not the kind of town, frankly, I want to live in.”, In terms of finding new revenues, some officials pointed to the need for Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study to begin contributing financially to the district budget, the way they do to support the municipal budget. Sullivan touched on how the university, in recruiting faculty, touts the public schools in the community as a selling point., “It is a symbiotic relationship, and it seems like we need to be getting something,” said school board member Dafna Kendall., Earlier, in pointed comments at the IAS, she said Princeton taxpayers have been subsidizing the education of children of “foreign scholars.” That would also include busing, English as a second language and special education costs., “We’re increasing the burden on Princeton residents to educate the children of foreign scholars. I’m not sure that’s fair,” she said., “It’s not,” Sullivan added., Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane said he had been in touch earlier Tuesday with the director of development at the IAS “to work on that conversation.” He said the two sides would talk again., For its part, Nassau Hall said this week that it paid $9.12 million in property taxes last year, of which $4.35 million were for the public schools., “All Princeton faculty and staff who live in Princeton reside in tax-paying properties, and support the public schools through taxes paid, whether or not they send students to the schools,” said university director of community and regional affairs Kristin S. Appelget by email Wednesday., “All University owned faculty-staff housing is kept on the tax rolls, and therefore tax payments from these properties support the public schools,” she said. “Additionally, we voluntarily leave all non-dormitory graduate housing on the tax rolls.”, These property tax payments are in addition to major gifts that have been given in the past to the district, such as the $500,000 provided to the schools to convert the former auditorium to the high school library., About $13.6 million of the budget falls into the non-discretionary category that officials have flexibility to control, unless they wanted to touch salaries and wages by laying off employees., “There’s not a whole lot of things that we have the opportunity to really slash,” school board member Justin Doran said., In terms of major cost drivers, health benefits are up $533,105, while salaries are up nearly $2.7 million, budget documents showed., Sullivan dismissed the notion that some have raised of ending the relationship Princeton has to accept students from Cranbury to Princeton High School, as a way to ease the space crunch at the high school. Sullivan said Cranbury pays Princeton $5 million a year, a key source of revenue., “And imagine if we were trying to fill a $5-million-hole. It would be devastating,” Sullivan said., Enrollment in Princeton – a town with new residential developments – is trending up. Cochrane said that in 2015, the district had 3,535 students, compared to an expected 3,837 in the next school year–a jump of 300 students in two years. Officials have proposed putting in trailers, two each at the high school and Community Park Elementary School, for $1 million., The district began working on the spending plan in October to request budget information from the school principals, along with staff requests. Officials have proposed adding 29 new positions adding up to $661,950 in salaries., In terms of a schedule, the board is scheduled to vote on a tentative budget March 16 and then submit it to the state Department of Education to review, district business administrator Stephanie Kennedy said. The district still can tinker with the budget before the board has to adopt the spending plan April 25.
