As members of the public continue to call upon school officials to forgo any increase in the school budget, the administration is now saying that the original 2.8 percent projected increase in the 2009-’10 budget has been cut to 1.6 percent.
Originally, officials were projecting preliminary numbers of $157.8 million for the budget, a $4.3 million increase over the 2008-’09 budget of $153.5 million. They say they have now cut those numbers down.
During the board’s meeting on February 24, Larry Shanok, the assistant superintendent for finance, announced that the board had been working with the district’s “budget managers,” mostly consisting of school principals, to cut the budget as much as possible.
Still, members of the public called for further action during the trying economic times. West Windsor resident Gerald Spielman, who said he worked for 31 years in the New York City school system as a teacher, assistant principal, and principal, recalled having to make things work within a meager budget — including the low wages offered to teachers. “I had to have a second and third job to support my family,” he said.
Spielman also recalled serving on a school board in Somerset County from 1971 to 1974. He said he has seen voters turn down budgets, but the school system still survived.
“Many of our fellow citizens are losing their jobs,” and it is time for WW-P school officials to “take out their pencils and erasers” and cut the budget down further, Spielman said. He said when he first heard the news that the budget increase had been reduced to 1.6 percent, he thought it was “wonderful of the administration” to do so, but “you didn’t work hard enough.”
Having “any increase, no matter how small, is not good enough,” he said.
West Windsor resident Pete Weale, who announced this week he would be running for mayor, echoed the sentiment. “Thank you for your efforts that have already been expended,” he said. But, he said he thinks the board could “lop off” another $1.85 million from the budget, and that overall, he would like to see it ultimately chopped by $2.4 million.
School Board President Hemant Marathe said school officials were working as hard as they possibly can to cut down the budget, but that it would be hard to do so when enrollment this upcoming year is expected to increase by .8 percent.
Superintendent Victoria Kniewel said working on the budget was a “demanding task” but that she has spent time talking to students, members of the PTSA, teachers, and administration, and that she feels “we do spend many hours working on a budget that is reasonable and fair while maintaining” the educational value the district’s taxpayers and families desire.
Shanok said school administrators are continuing to look closely at the budget to find more areas where they can cut costs.
The area of the budget for athletics will remain flat this year, said Athletic Director Marty Flynn, in a presentation during the budget discussion. “We understand the economic times we’re in,” he said. He said he had been communicating and holding meetings with coach since the fall to find ways to keep costs down.
“We’re going to work with a flat-line budget — no increases at all,” he reported. He said athletic officials and coaches have put plans in place to look closely at supplies and equipment, since shipping costs and prices of uniforms are expecting to rise because of the economy. Therefore, the athletic department has put a moratorium on purchasing new uniforms, although Flynn says officials are not going to hold off on purchasing anything an athlete absolutely needs.
He said the athletic department was also limiting the number of non-conference games played by high school athletic teams, particularly at the freshman level. Also, the amount the district needs to pay professionals to officiate the games will be increasing by a dollar per hour this upcoming year. So WW-P teams will increase participation fees from other schools who participate in WW-P-sponsored tournaments to help cover the costs for officiating.
“We’re keeping the costs at minimum while maintaining excellence,” he said.
Shanok said that “the dollar more for an official does seem minor, but it does add up.” He also commended Flynn for keeping the athletics budget flat. “Even though we’ve not added sports in recent years, the athletic part of the budget has been creeping up,” and to keep it flat this year is positive, he said.
With regard to other co-curricular activities, Thomas Smith, the assistant superintendent for planning and pupil services, said that officials will be “auditing” all of the co-curricular activities, including looking at participation rates and checking to see if there are any programs that are undersubscribed. Those programs will be eliminated.
“Like athletics, these programs really provide a valuable experience to the students who participate in them,” Smith said, emphasizing, again, that officials are looking to save money, but also maintain the level of quality in the district’s programs on which the district has built its prestigious reputation.
Shanok said officials were continuing to realign positions within the district to deal with the shifting enrollment, and that officials were looking for cost-saving measures in other areas of the budget.
With regard to facilities, where there are also no projected increases, he said the administration was hoping that the current prices of natural gas, which have been lower recently, will hover in the range a little longer to help offset next year’s costs. He also said that small improvements, like replacing older technology with newer technology, was helping the district save costs because the newer technology is more energy efficient.
Shanok also mentioned that in 2007, the school district again applied for a rebate to help cover some of the cost of its solar project and was finally awarded a $576,”500 grant in support of the $1.8 million project. He said the administration planned to cover the remaining 60 percent of the costs for the project in the capital budget to move forward with the solar project. The solar project must commence as soon as possible because “if we don’t go ahead with the new project, our rebate will expire.”
The district is also looking to pursue collaborative projects with respect to transportation, and is looking at trying to implement a three-tier transportation system. Officials are also looking to cut back on the number of late buses, since they are underutilized, although a base level of late buses will still be maintained, Shanok said.
“The pressures continue, and we try to balance them accordingly,” Shanok said.
Shanok reviewed the projections for the general expenses for the 2009-’10 school year. In instruction, the district is estimating a budget of $50.2 million, a 2.4 percent increase over this year’s $49 million. In co-curricular activities and athletics, the district is estimating a 2.5 percent decrease, from $2.5 million this year to $2.4 million next year.
In special services, the district is estimating a budget of $22.6 million, a 2.5 percent increase over last year’s $22.1 million, while in the area of student support, the district is estimating an increase of 1.1 percent, from $6.2 million this year to $6.3 million next year.
The district is also estimating that it will need $3.2 million for improvement of instruction, which is a 1.6 percent increase over the $3.1 million accounted for in this year’s budget. The budget for administration is expected to increase by 1.1 percent, from $10.9 million this year to $11.1 million next year. Operations and maintenance costs are expected to stay the same in the budget, at $12.5 million, while transportation costs are expected to rise 2 percent from $9 million this year to $9.2 million next year.
However, Shanok emphasized that the debt service for next year is estimated to be $10.6 million, still below the $11.1 million the board promised its constituents when the referendum was approved a few years ago.
As for taxes, this is the first year that school taxes will be determined based upon the amount of students sent by each township to the district, and no longer by property values.
How that is divided up depends on figures from both townships that are not yet available. Still, the projected amount of money needed to be collected through taxation this year is expected to be $135,”066,”838, compared with this year’s $134,”070,”787. While the budget is increasing 1.6 percent overall, this is a tax increase of only 0.7 percent, Shanok said.
The budgets depend heavily on the change in state aid and the change in tax relief, Shanok explained. With regard to tax relief, it has been the district’s practice that at the end of the school year, if there are funds remaining in the budget that are above the minimum 2 percent fund balance allowed by law, that district officials will then designate that money for tax relief.
Usually, WW-P officials apply that money for tax relief in the following year’s budget. However, the executive county superintendent has changed the practice this year, Shanok explains. Instead of waiting to see how much is left over in the 2009-’10 budget — so that officials can use that tax relief for 2010-’11 — the county superintendent has asked the district to assume it will have something left at the end of the cycle for the 2009-10 budget, and has asked the board to create the budget for this year with that tax relief already included.
And that $1 million in estimated tax relief that has been added to the 2009-’10 budget is why the amount of projected increase is only at 0.7 percent, Shanok said. “Think two years from now, when $1 million isn’t around,” Shanok said. “People will say the budget went up 2 percent, and local taxes are going up 4 percent. We’re leery of changing how we do it. Yes, everyone will be happy this time.” But they might not be happy in the years to come, he says.
While the state originally required school districts to have their preliminary budgets submitted to the state by Wednesday, March 4, the date was delayed since the governor would not be speaking about the state budget — from which state aid figures for school districts would be derived — until Tuesday, March 10, and new figures would not be available until Thursday, March 12.
Therefore, the board’s meeting on Tuesday, March 10 has been rescheduled for Tuesday, March 17, at which time the board will accept a tentative budget to submit to the state by its deadline of March 18. The public hearing on the budget is scheduled for Tuesday, March 31.
