West Windsor residents may be covering 62 percent of the tax bill in 2008-’09, as equalized valuation numbers show a 62/38 split between West Windsor and Plainsboro when it comes to the school budget this year — the last year taxes are based on property values and not on the amount of students in each township.##M:[more]##
This is the preliminary projection made by Assistant Superintendent for Finance Larry Shanok at the school board’s February 26 meeting, although he says final assessments and equalized values have not yet come in from the townships. “We like to get to the point where officials in both towns are feeling very confident of the numbers,” Shanok says. “That’s not the case yet. These are the numbers as they are known today.”
The school board will be holding a joint meeting with officials from both townships on Tuesday, March 18, at 6 p.m. at Grover Middle School.
During the meeting, the board voted to send a preliminary budget to the county superintendent by the state’s March 6 deadline. That preliminary budget also projects an overall 4.3 percent increase, as expected, in this year’s school budget, from about $147 million last year to about $153.5 million in 2008-09. The local tax levy is expected to rise by about 3.4 percent, to $132.6 million, he said during his presentation.
This means Plainsboro’s tax levy will be $51.8 million, while West Windsor’s will be $80.8 million, Shanok projected.
The operating budget, which excludes capital outlay, the small general fund expenditures for adult school, grant activities, and debt service, is expected to be at $139.7 million this year, up from $133.2 million last year. The budget will up for a vote on Tuesday, April 15.
School officials have consistently pointed to the increase of costs for salaries, wages, stipends and benefits, as well as growing enrollment and energy costs and transportation for this year’s increases.
“Nearly 80 percent of our operating budget are various forms of compensation,” Shanok said. “The energy costs that everyone is seeing will affect us especially in transportation.”
The district’s general expenses were higher in some categories and lower in others, but all together averaged a 4.3 overall increase. The most dramatic increase was transportation, which is projected to cost the district $9 million this year, a 9.7 percent increase. “Increase in fuel is a very real thing, whether it’s our own buses, or buses we contract out,” Shanok said.
Another of the larger increases was in administrative costs, with a 5.5 percent increase to $10.9 million, but district officials have been saying that it is due mostly to the increase in legal costs. “Costs for legal representation have been increasing by $100,”000 a year,” said Shanok.
School board members and district officials also discussed the hiring of three new full-time equivalents to go along with the increase in enrollment. As discussed in prior meetings, two full-time equivalents are needed at High School North, one as a guidance counselor, and one as a teacher. High School North is reaching full build-out and is almost on par with High School South.
But it was the middle school level that had the focus of discussion by school officials on February 26, where the third full-time equivalent would be needed next year.
“If you look at Community Middle School, the additional FTE is being spotted in the sixth grade,” said Steve Mayer, the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. “Over the last few years, the enrollment has started to reverse between Community and Grover, where projections indicate Community will level out in the 1,”200 range, roughly 400 students per grade level, and Grover is sort of heading toward 360 to 370 per grade over the next few years.”
In fact, next year, principal projections show Community will have 1,”238 students, and Grover will have 1,”158. School board committee projections are on par with the principal’s for Grover, but with Community, the committee’s projection is that enrollment there could actually reach 1,”275.
Board member Stan Katz explained, though, that the difference in the projections is due to the number of students expected to be brought in by the full build-out of Toll Brothers and the possible students coming in from the Akselrad project. “Knowing that there are going to be 70 more single family houses in Toll Brothers next year, the committee’s projection includes those kids,” Katz said. “The principal’s doesn’t. We don’t want to be surprised afterward.”
In terms of guidance counselors at the middle school level, board member Patricia Bocarsly became concerned when Thomas Smith, the assistant superintendent of pupil services and planning, showed the ratios of students at each school from grades K-8. All of those schools have one guidance counselor, but at Maurice Hawk and Town Center, the student-to-guidance counselor ratios were 845:1 and 731:1, respectively, when the rest of the schools had ratios in the 300s, 400s, and 500s of students per guidance counselor.
Smith, however, said the district is looking at the ratios, but “we feel the students’ needs are being met very well.”
At the high school level, it is a different story, though. Smith said that with the stable enrollment at High School South, the student to guidance counselor ratio should remain around 216:1. At High School North, if a guidance counselor were not added, the ratio would rise to 245:1. Adding a guidance counselor there would bring the ratio back down to 212:1, he said.
Smith said the national average ratio of students to guidance counselors is 250:1. “But I believe the number of students we have going to college is a little different than the norm,” he said. “Last year we had at least one student with over 40 applications. We are truly a customer service organization, and we want every student to have the best chance of getting into the college of his or her choice.”
Bocarsly said that every year, the board has discussed hiring a college counselor in previous budgets, but the idea never makes it through to the final cut. “I think what we’re seeing is a lot of parents are now starting to pay up to a few thousand dollars per child to have private college counselors. There’s a lot of pressure out there to package kids correctly.”
Board member Richard Kaye said each of the counselors takes his or her caseload through, as opposed to some schools where one or two individual become the college counselor. “While they each have their own clientele and reach out to many schools together, they have a powerful network inside the building and across the two buildings that strengthens the overall outreach of the guidance counselors. They’re working as generalists and specialists. We get more for the money,” Kaye said.
