April 27 was a bad day for the WW-P school budget. And it wasn’t much better for the incumbents seeking re-election. The budget was defeated, 1,601 to 1,513, setting the stage for a review by the township governing bodies.
In Plainsboro, voters seeking a change ousted incumbent Alapakkam Manikandan in favor of Rachelle Feldman Hurwitz, 506-411. In West Windsor, incumbent Richard Kaye retained his seat, but a challenger, Dana Krug, was the leading vote getter, 1,430 to Kaye’s 1,120. Challenger Scott Powell came in third with 835, according to the unofficial totals posted by the clerks’ offices about an hour after the closing of the polls.
While Plainsboro voters passed the budget, 521-481, West Windsor voters had enough “no” votes, 1,120-992, to turn it down.
The WW-P budget defeat bucked both state and county- wide trends. At the state level, budget approvals increased significantly from 60 percent last year to 80 percent this year, according to published reports.
WW-P’s budget was also the only spending plan in Mercer County to be defeated at the polls.
It is the first time in more than a decade that WW-P voters defeated the budget (it was defeated by five votes in 1999). The proposed $158.55 million budget now will head to the West Windsor Township Council and the Plainsboro Township Committee, where officials will decide what to cut, if anything.
According to Larry LoCastro, the district’s comptroller, the townships will have to agree and certify the tax levy by Thursday, May 19.
“We have until Thursday, May 5, to supply the townships the packet of information and financial data,” he said. “We expect to provide it to the townships by Friday, April 29.”
Officials in both townships are able to suggest where to cut or where the district should budget more revenue, LoCastro said. “All that translates into a revised tax levy amount, or they can elect to keep it, or I suppose they could even increase it, though that’s obviously unlikely to happen.”
While the governing bodies can make suggestions for places to cut, what they will have to agree upon is a revised tax levy amount. “If the municipality makes any reductions, it must back up its decision by identifying corresponding reductions in school expenditures,” according to William Dressel of the New Jersey League of Municipalities. “The board is not bound by these particular spending cuts, but it must live with the tax levy certified by the municipal governing body.”
There is, however, an avenue of appeal for the school district. “Where the board of education does not dispute the reduction made, the county superintendent will determine whether there is sufficient funding for the district to provide a thorough and efficient system of education,” said LoCastro. “Where it disputes it, the executive county superintendent will schedule a combined meeting of the board and governing bodies to come to an agreement.”
There is no date set yet for West Windsor and Plainsboro’s officials to meet on the budget.
Leading up to the election, voters expressed frustration about large increases in the tax rate, despite an overall budget increase of 2.5 percent and a spending increase of only 1.7 percent.
The proposed $158.55 million budget represented an overall $2.7 million increase (1.72 percent) over last year’s $155.9 million budget. But the tax levy under the proposal would have increased to $147.12 million, an increase of $3.6 million over last year’s $143.5 million tax levy.
Breaking down the tax burden, however, was where some residents took issue.
In Plainsboro taxpayers would have paid $60.9 million in support of the school budget — a 2.8 percent increase over last year’s tax levy. In West Windsor, the amount to be raised by taxation would have been $86.1 million, an increase of 2.3 percent over last year’s levy.
Further, the proposed tax rate in Plainsboro would have increased by 7.5 cents — from $1.55 per $100 of assessed value in 2010 to $1.62 in 2011. The tax rate in West Windsor would have increased by 8.8 cents — from $1.34 per $100 in 2010 to $1.43 in 2011.
Officials have said that declining home values had a significant role in the tax burden this year.
The overall assessed property values declined by 0.6 percent in Plainsboro (from $3.72 billion to $3.70 billion) and by 2 percent in West Windsor (from $6.08 billion to $5.97 billion) — meaning the burden is handled by less value.
When asked why he felt voters turned the budget down, School Board President Hemant Marathe cited several reasons. He pointed to a comment made by one resident at the school board meeting on April 27, in which she voted against the budget for concerns related to the installation of lights at the athletic fields at high schools North and South.
“People don’t tell me why they voted against the budget,” he said. “But people are concerned about taxes — no doubt about it. The school board is the only tax they get to vote on. Any anger on any form of government, they take it out on the school budget.”
He said this was evident in comments made on the News’ website — wwpinfo.com — where one resident mentioned that his overall tax bill was increasing, mostly as a result of taxes coming from the municipal portion of his bill.
“A lot of people don’t even realize that because they don’t take the time to look at their taxes,” he said. “A simple question that people need to ask themselves is why taxes went up. Spending has gone up by only 1.7 percent, but why have the taxes gone up by more than 1.7 percent? Last year, spending went up 0 percent, but why did the taxes go up by more than 0 percent last year?”
He said school officials tried to emphasize this, but it is up to the voters to make the connection. If they ask those kinds of questions when looking at their tax bills, “then people will understand there is a connection beyond what the school board can control.”
“I told people to look at their taxes and look at what the school district controls,” he added. “If the public only voted on our spending, they would have seen it has only gone up by 1.7 percent, .7 of which is the charter school funding. So essentially, our spending has gone up by 1 percent. If a 1 percent increase in spending over a two-year period is too much, there is nothing I can do about it.”
Plainsboro Mayor Peter Cantu said any discussions on areas to cut in the budget will not occur until both townships “come together and proceed as we’re charged to do, and that’s to examine the budget to see what recommendations we can make.”
“Regardless of what the situation is from community to community, we have to respond to the concerns of the voters but also in such a way that we don’t compromise the educational product the district offers,” he said.
