will see tax levy drop
from initial proposal
State agrees with 6 towns
towns on $937K budget cut
Freehold Regional
will see tax levy drop
from initial proposal
By dave benjamin
Staff Writer
The Freehold Regional High School District’s 2003-04 budget will be cut by the $937,000 agreed to by municipal officials in six of the eight sending communities.
Officials in Manalapan, Englishtown, Marlboro, Farmingdale, Freehold Borough and Freehold Township agreed to cut that amount after voters rejected the $135 million budget for the coming school year in the April 15 school election. That spending plan called for a total tax levy of $84 million.
The governing bodies in Colts Neck and Howell wanted cuts of more than $1 million.
The lack of consensus sent the budget to the state commission of education for review.
Late last week, FRHSD Business Administrator Joan Nesenkar Saylor said Commissioner William L. Librera upheld the $937,000 in cuts that the majority of the municipalities had agreed upon.
Librera decreased the $84 million tax levy by that amount and by an additional $40,000 in miscellaneous revenue, for a total cut of $977,000, according to Ilse Wishner, public information coordinator for the FRHSD.
Commenting on the commissioner’s decision, Superintendent of Schools James Wasser said, "This is probably the most scrutinized budget in the history of the district. Feeling the pinch of our economic climate, the administration and the Board of Education thoroughly examined and weighed each budget item for absolute necessity. The public was given the opportunity to review the proposed budget."
Wasser said the eight mayors and municipal governing bodies examined the defeated budget for additional cuts.
"At that time we volunteered to reduce the budget by an additional $937,000; maintaining only those items considered essential to student programs and staffing needs," Wasser said. "The majority of the towns agreed with the reductions to the budget. Two towns (Colts Neck and Howell), however, demanded additional cuts …"
The superintendent said that after a laborious budget review process, a panel of experts whose instructions were to find the fat and make the appropriate cuts, ruled that the $937,000 budget reduction was reasonable and that no further cuts should be made because they would bear a negative impact on student programs.
"The bottom line is, they could not find anything to cut and they approved the budget with $937,000 in cuts," Wasser said, adding that while no superintendent enjoys a budget defeat and subsequent review, this has proven to be a fair process.
"The panel of experts reviewed and validated what we knew on April 15 after the budget was defeated," said the superintendent. "We offered the mayors $937,000 in budget cuts, but made it clear that any cut beyond the $937,000 was unacceptable, because it would impact on essential staffing, student services and programs."
Wasser said he was unwilling to discuss making staff cuts or the possibility of cutting the adult education program, summer school or freshman sports.
The $937,000 cut resulted from $350,000 in vocational school tuition which Monmouth County agreed to pay; $150,000 in salaries by eliminating one of two after-school activity bus runs; $92,000 by changing six media specialists and six guidance counselors from 11-month positions to 10-month positions; $180,000 by deferring the purchase of operations and maintenance equipment; and $165,000 in salary and health benefits by not refilling three supervisor positions, Wasser said.
"This was a fair budget," the superintendent reiterated.
The budget as adopted by the board in March included increases in the FRHSD property tax rate for all eight towns, as follows:
• Colts Neck, increase of 6.7 cents per $100 of assessed value;
• Englishtown, increase of 6.6 cents;
• Farmingdale, increase of 25.4 cents;
• Freehold Borough, increase of 3.1 cents;
• Freehold Township, increase of 3.9 cents;
• Howell, increase of 4.3 cents;
• Manalapan, increase of 9.4 cents;
• Marlboro, increase of 5.6 cents.
On Monday, Wasser said the $977,000 cut in the 2003-04 tax levy means the tax rate increase in each FRHSD town will be about 1 cent less than what was proposed in April. In order to reduce the increase by a full cent, a cut in the tax levy of $1.2 million would have been needed, he said. The 1-cent decrease in the proposed increase translates to a savings of about $20 over the course of a year to the owner of a home assessed at $200,000.
The tax levy for each town for the 2003-04 school year will be as follows:
• Colts Neck, $9.01 million (10.16 percent of the total tax levy);
• Englishtown, $510,000 (0.58 percent of the total tax levy);
• Farmingdale, $500,000 (0.56 percent of the total tax levy);
• Freehold Borough, $3.05 million (3.44 percent of the total tax levy);
• Freehold Township, $16.96 million (19.13 percent of the total tax levy);
• Howell, $17.96 million (20.26 percent of the total tax levy);
• Manalapan, $18.62 million (21 percent of the total tax levy);
• Marlboro, $22.04 million (24.87 percent of the total tax levy).
Students from Howell attend the six schools in the Freehold Regional High School District.