By Andrew Martins, Managing Editor
The salaries of three new guidance counselors for elementary schools in Hillsborough Township have been added to the proposed 2017-18 school budget., The decision was outlined by Board President Gregory Gillette and other district officials during the board of education meeting on Monday, who reported that each of the district’s committees agreed with the move., “We discussed adding three guidance counselors to the district so that each elementary school would have its own guidance counselor,” Gillette said., As it stands, the district employs three counselors to serve its six elementary schools. With the additional staff, officials said the counseling needs of the schools’ students and staff will be more easily addressed., The news came weeks after much of the April 3 board meeting was spent praising Auten Road Intermediate School’s counselor Angela Cleveland, who had been named the 2017 New Jersey School Counselor of the Year., “As school counselors, we make sure that our students have a place in our schools, in our district, in our community, in our state, our country and our world – we make sure that everyone is included,” she said earlier this month., In order to make room for the budget changes, Gillette said Superintendent Dr. Jorden Schiff will present a final budget on May 8 that will see the elimination of tech coach and one transitional primary (TP) teacher positions., Despite those changes, district spokeswoman Kia Bergman asserted that the budget would not bring any staff reductions with it, as the changes would be made “with existing personnel based on enrollment fluctuation.”, In the case of TP, Gillette said enrollment was nearly half of what the district’s four TP teachers could handle., “We are currently overstaffed in TP as far as the amount of students currently in TP,” Gillette said. “We have the capacity for 88 students, but we only have 49.”, The three counseling positions will also be paid for through a reduction in the amount of available funding for substitute teachers., Schiff is slated to conduct a final presentation on the district’s $128.3 million budget proposal for the 2017-18 school year at the next school board meeting., The budget marks a 3.93 percent increase, or approximately $4.85 million, it its 2016-17 counterpart. Approximately $93.8 million will be collected in taxes, marking a 3.69 percent increase from the previous year’s tax levy of $90.5 million., As a result of the rising tax levy, the proposed tax rate in Hillsborough will go from $1.595 per $100 of assessed property value for the 2016-17 school year to $1.607 per $100 of assessed property value in the proposed school budget., For homeowners in Millstone who send their children to the Hillsborough Township School District, their tax levy could see an 3.9 percent increase of approximately $904,000 in the 2016-17 school year to more than $939,000 in the proposed 2017-18 budget., The tax rate in Millstone is also going up, from 1.689 per $100 of assessed value in 2016-17 to 1.750 per $100 of assessed value, or a 3.02 percent increase., The presentation and final vote will be held on May 8 at Auten Road Intermediate School.
