Uses money from surplus fund to reduce impact
By: Frank C. D’Amico
MILLSTONE — Taxpayers will see a 7.7 percent increase in the school tax rate, nearly 1 percent less than originally proposed, after the Township Committee suggested using surplus funds to reduce the financial impact of the 2000-01 school district budget.
The new rate will reduce the tax impact by $36 for the owner of a house at the township average of $242,000.
During Wednesday’s Township Committee meeting, the committee unanimously passed a resolution to cut the school tax rate by 1.5 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
On April 18, voters defeated the $17.3 million budget, 294-283. That spending plan had called for an 8.6 percent increase in the school tax rate. The tax rate for 2000-01 had been set at $1.76 per $100 of assessed valuation, a 14-cent increase over the current school year.
With the reduction made by the committee, the tax rate will be $1.745 per $100 of assessed value. Under the new rate, the owner of a house assessed at the township average of $242,000 will pay $4,223 in school taxes for 2000-01, an increase of $303 over the current year.
The budget itself was not cut. The $110,000 used to reduce the tax rate will be taken from the school district’s surplus. The district has $674,000 in surplus, district Business Administrator Brian Boyle said.
In the tax rate, a penny is worth $73,000.
The deadline for a decision on the defeated budget is Friday, and the Board of Education is expected to agree to the surplus decision.
“We will work within the guidelines you’ve given us,” Millstone Board of Education President Alan Gallagher told the committee at the meeting. “We really appreciate your support.”
The committee members each expressed the difficulty of a decision to cut the tax rate.
Mayor Cory Wingerter reiterated his feelings that the board has a harder job at budget time than the committee does because it deals with a larger budget and contract negotiations.
Committeeman Bill Kastning, the committee’s liaison to the Board of Education, said the board had made “some eloquent statements” about the budget, but it was decided the tax rate had to be reduced.
“It isn’t one of the more pleasant things we have to do while we’re up here,” Committeeman Bill Nurko said.
School administrators said enrollment growth accounted for much of the budget increases. They said there were 490 students in the Millstone district in 1990 and that number now is around 1,600.
Millstone, which sends its high school students to the Upper Freehold Regional School District’s Allentown High School, pays approximately $10,100 per student in tuition to AHS.
Millstone will pay tuition for 60 more students in 2000-01 than the current year. That increased one area of the budget by $606,000.
If the original budget passed, the owner of a house valued at the township average of $242,000 would have paid $4,259 in school taxes for the 2000-01 school year, a hike of $339 over the current year.
The Board of Education and Township Committee first met to discuss the budget May 3. No action was taken because Mr. Nurko was in Costa Rica on business.
Last week, Mr. Nurko met with Millstone Superintendent William Setaro and Mr. Kastning to catch up on the proceedings.