Tinton Falls BOE plans for reduced state aid

Tinton Falls BOE plans for reduced state aid
Staff cuts, service reductions anticipated
BY KENNY WALTER Staff Writer
Anticipating a 15 percent reduction in state aid, the Tinton Falls Board of Education presented the tentative 2010-11 budget last week, including a list of staffing changes.

The tentative budget was unanimously passed at the board’s March 8 meeting, where board members announced that if there is a 15 percent reduction in state aid, nearly 10 positions would have to be cut.

“After looking at every line item in our budget, there was nowhere else to go other than staff cuts,” Superintendent John Russo said. “This is based on whether or not this 15 percent reduction actually takes place.”

The positions that would be cut include one middle school science teacher, one and a half middle school language arts teachers, two guidance counselors, one part-time basic skills teacher, one part-time secretary, one part-time child study team member, one special education teacher, two paraprofessionals and one elementary school teacher.

On Feb. 18 the New Jersey commissioner of education advised all school districts to anticipate a 15 percent decrease in state aid revenue in preparing their budgets.

Gov. Chris Christie has also directed that all school districts use their surplus funds to offset withheld state aid. The governor has announced a plan to cut $475 million in state aid to school districts, part of a plan to deal with the state’s multibillion-dollar budget gap.

School districts are allowed to have a surplus account, with any amount above 2 percent considered excess surplus and earmarked for taxpayer relief. By Christie’s direction, the district must use the excess surplus toward the 2009-10 budget.

A 15 percent reduction in state aid will mean a cut of $630,000, but the district will still be in line to receive $3.5 million in aid toward the $27.1 million budget; $18.8 million would be raised from the local tax levy.

Russo said the board would be looking to make cuts without increasing class sizes.

“It was critically important to me that we do everything we can to protect class sizes,” he said. “We will do everything we can to not completely eliminate any one program or service. They will be reduced but not eliminated.”

Christie withheld state aid for this fiscal year, and districts must use their surplus funds instead, which meant that Tinton Falls had to use $1.47 million in surplus money in place of the state funding.

Board President Peter Karavites defended the district’s past history of saving surplus funds.

“What do we do with our surplus?” Karavites said. “We had a tax decrease last year. We have a very budget-minded board, and we use our surplus to lower taxes.”

District Business Administrator Tamar Sydney-Gens made a budget presentation to the council at the meeting and said the district’s costs for health benefits have risen in the past year.

“We as a district are in the state health benefits plan,” she said. “The state health benefits plan this current year jumped 25 percent, an enormous number.

“We were not expecting that level, and they are talking about another 23 to 25 percent increase for next year,” she added.

According to Sydney-Gens, employees pay 5 percent for the dependent portion of their benefits and zero percent of their personal benefits.

She went on to say that those provisions are collectively bargained, meaning that they couldn’t be cut during the current contract.

“I had no leeway; that is what our contract looks like,” she said.

Sydney-Gens said the district does shop for the best health insurance deals.

“One of the things we do is shop our health insurance, and I can tell you the state health benefits plan has the best bang for the buck, as expensive as that seems,” she said.

She said cuts are expected in state aid next year, and she does not expect the district to receive any extraordinary aid in the coming year.

According to Sydney-Gens, 69 percent of the budget comes from property taxes and 14 percent comes from state aid from last year. She explained that each department submitted an initial budget but had to go back and make further cuts.

“Everyone went back and made cuts,” she said. “Nobody was immune, and no stone was left unturned. We reduced every line that we possibly could.”

Some of the other cuts, Sydney-Gens explained, would come from reducing repair costs, sharing transportation costs with neighboring towns, and reducing instructional supplies.

She explained that the tentative budget would ultimately look different.

“We built this budget on assumption,” she said. “Every day, those assumptions have changed in the last four weeks. I expect they will continue to change.”

Districts will find out about their state aid by March 18. The next public hearing on the budget will be held March 31, and the board is slated to vote on the budget April 20.