Both East Windsor and Hightstown residents will see tax increases if proposed 2004-2005 school budget is approved.
By: David Pescatore
HIGHTSTOWN The Board of Education on Monday unanimously proposed a $69 million 2004-2005 budget carrying double-digit increases in the tax rates of both the borough and East Windsor.
The total marks a $4.3 million increase from last year’s revised $64.6 million mark, a 6.7 percent increase.
If adopted by the board and approved by voters, the school portion of the property tax in East Windsor would increase 6 percent (16.2 cents) to $2.83 per $100 of assessed value. The owner of an average township single-family house, assessed at $165,000, would pay $4,669 in school tax, $269 more than last year.
In Hightstown, the school tax rate would increase 7 percent (20 cents) to $3.06 per $100 of assessed property value. The average borough single-family house, assessed at $120,000, would be taxed $3,672, or $245 more than last year.
The budget includes $47.5 million to be raised through taxes to cover both general purposes and debt. The remainder would come from state and federal sources.
Districts are allowed an annual budget increase of 3 percent plus adjustments for student enrollment, capital improvements, increased health insurance costs, and improvements in transportation safety. Portions of those expenses do not count against a district’s cap, allowing for a total budget that exceeds the limit.
This plan includes cap adjustments totaling $1.75 million in response to expanding enrollment rosters, transportation, insurance costs and domestic security preparedness.
District Business Administrator David Shafter said the budget also uses the remaining $262,480 of "banked cap."
Cap space can be "banked" if a district does not need a 3 percent increase in a given year. This is to remove the "use it or lose it" aspect of the metered growth.
With the adjustments, Mr. Shafter said the district now would be able to hire three new teachers for Hightstown High School and a kindergarten paraprofessional. Positions that were added, then removed, from the budget.
In the elementary schools, eight lunchroom aides will be hired at a combined $34,879 to reduce the number of teachers required to monitor students. The lunchroom monitors were never removed from the list of new hires for next school year.
The district had planned to hire several other new employees, including an assistant principal for the Ethel McKnight and Grace N. Rogers schools, an assistant business administrator, and several clerical employees that will not be hired for next year.
According to Mr. Shafter, the district also would be eliminating several positions and not filling others as they became vacant.
The budget calls for getting rid of six current positions, including an assistant principal from the Melvin H. Kreps School, a high school guidance supervisor, supervisor of curriculum, and technology coordinator, resulting in a savings of $367,000, Mr. Shafter said.
East Windsor Education Association representative Terri Tuliszewski criticized the board for its decision to cut the curriculum supervisor, saying that it showed "a lack of commitment to the students."
Ms. Tuliszewski said the district would be "on the road to disaster" if cuts were made as planned. More than 100 teachers and supporters appeared last month at a board meeting to say that the Office of Curriculum and Instruction was ineffective.
Board President Bruce Ettman responded by saying that the district did not want to remove the supervisor.
"We’re doing our best," he said, citing the lack of funding for the district to achieve standards laid out in No Child Left Behind legislation. "We are looking for ways to restore whatever cuts there are."
Mr. Shafter could not say who would be terminated, as some staff members have "bump rights," or the ability to claim other district jobs in the event that their position were to be eliminated.
Other cuts were made by canceling expansions to the summer school program, charging things to this year’s budget, or to the $64.4 million bond referendum passed in 2002, and delaying the replacement business software upgrades.
Mr. Shafter said that no activities or services would be reduced from their current levels.
A public comment session has yet to be set, but must be held between March 26 and March 30.