It’s the $190 question that has created debate in the days before the school election on Tuesday, April 20. School district officials say the average increase to West Windsor taxpayers under this year’s budget is $8. West Windsor township officials, on the other hand, are using a method that calculates it to be $198.
The confusion is rooted in the formulas each is using to portray the average school tax impact. School officials say that because assessed home values on average in West Windsor have decreased, the tax impact should be calculated by comparing the tax bill of a home with last year’s average valuation against a the taxes paid on a home using this year’s lower average valuation.
Township officials in West Windsor are using a different approach. Their calculations apply this year’s 4-cent tax increase to a constant assessed valuation for 2009 and 2010 and show an average increase of $198.
“Nobody is going to pay taxes on last year’s assessment,” said Board President Hemant Marathe. “An average house doesn’t pay $198 more than last year. It’s only $8 more than what the average homeowner last year paid.”
To look at the numbers otherwise is incorrect, he argued. Taking the tax rates for both this year and last year and measuring them against the same assessment is not an accurate representation of the tax impact because many residents’ homes are not assessed as high as they were last year.
Marathe said that three of the six West Windsor school board members are seeing their taxes go down — a trend for many township homeowners.
Measuring the tax impact using one assessment “ignores the fact that given the decline in assessed value, a whole bunch of people are paying less,” said Larry Shanok, the assistant superintendent for finance. “There are a number of communities, including Village Grande, where their assessments are lower.”
“It appears from what people are telling us that our assessed values went down by more than the net impact on the tax rate. They’re paying less in taxes.”
“The assessed valuation in West Windsor has gone down for three years in a row,” Marathe said, relaying information from Shanok. “I am told the commercial ratables have increased by $50 million this year. What that means is several taxpayers have reduced assessments and are paying lower taxes then they think they are paying. I know at least a couple of neighborhoods who are going to pay lower school taxes next year than they paid this year.”
The tax rates for the proposed budget have not been questioned; neither is the fact that Plainsboro residents will be hit the hardest this year. Plainsboro’s rate will increase by some 10 cents to $1.549, while West Windsor’s will increase by 4 cents to $1.34 per $100 of assessed value this year.
Under those numbers, the owner of a Plainsboro home assessed at the township average of $395,000 will pay an average of $6,119 in school taxes, an increase of about $400 over last year.
The confusion in West Windsor’s tax impact first arose at the April 6 Township Council meeting, when Councilwoman Linda Geevers referred to calculations by Township Chief Financial Officer Joanne Louth. The numbers showed that the owner of an average home in West Windsor will see an increase of $198 — much higher than the school had presented in its public hearing last month. Geevers said she was looking for clarification about why the two numbers were different.
Geevers again asked for clarification at a special school board meeting on April 14.
In West Windsor, the owner of a home assessed at the township average of $534,787 would pay a tax bill of approximately $7,171, based on a tax rate of $1.34 per $100 of assessed value. Both the school’s numbers and the township’s numbers reflect that figure.
But the school district and the township have different methods of determining the tax impact.
The township’s methodology, however, calculates an increase $198 over last year’s bill. In making a comparison, they calculate the average increase for the owner of a home assessed at the $534,787 value for both years. That homeowner paid $6,973 last year.
Still, voters will make the final decision on the proposed 2010-’11 school budget of $155.9 million — the same amount as the current year’s spending plan. But even the flat measure was not enough to offset a $7.56 million loss in state aid. To cover that gap, the district will have to eliminate some 50 teachers.
The total tax increase combines a 4 percent general fund tax levy increase — which meets the state-mandated cap of a 4 percent increase — and a 2.5 percent tax increase for debt service, which is allowed by law to be excluded from the cap.
Originally, the board was projecting an overall increase in the budget, but had to cut that down after the state aid cuts were announced.
The proposed budget calls for reductions in the number of teaching, administrative, secretarial, and busing staff as well as cuts to extra-curriculars and sports programs. Also included in the plan is a reduction of guidance counselors, and elimination of five administrators, three secretaries, and three bus drivers. It also includes a reduction in capital spending as well as a decrease of $1.5 million in the buildings and grounds area of the budget as a result of the new contract the board approved with the custodial and maintenance staff (see page 16).
The district is currently looking at a formula that cuts 17 teachers per $1 million that needs to be saved — in this case, $3.4 million. But the total number of teachers to be cut cannot be estimated right now for a number of reasons, including retirements.
The plan also includes a consolidation of bus routes and a reduction in special education spending. At the elementary school level, there will be a reduction in the number of K-4 health teachers, K-5 computer teachers, and a reduction in staff through increased class sizes.
At the middle school level, there would be a reduction in the number of teaching positions, a restructuring of the support teachers, and a reduction in the number of coaches and programs in athletics and co-curricular activities.
At the high school level, there will be a reduction in staff through increasing class sizes, a reduction in the number of coaches and programs in athletics and co-curricular activities, a reduction in number of under-subscribed courses and athletic teams, and a reduction of health and library services staffing.
Officials said the district will be cutting a total of about $100,000 from the extra curriculars and athletics programs, although officials say that they are first looking at reducing the stipends for coaches.
They also emphasized the most recent “total comparative per pupil costs” released by the state Department of Education show that in 2009-’10, WW-P spent an average of $13,045 per pupil. By comparison, Hopewell spent $15,067, and Princeton spent $17,421. The district also spent below the state average.
Superintendent Victoria Kniewel said the cuts would be made using a “scalpel approach,” spreading the impact of the reductions, rather than an outright slashing of programs.
The budget also reflects the renegotiated contracts the board approved with the teachers’ and administrators’ unions last month — projected to save the district more than $1 million.
Under the new terms, salary raises will be frozen for a 12-week period beginning September 1, 2010, for the two unions. The teachers’ contract, which was originally set to expire in June, 2011, was extended to the 2011-’12 school year. That year teachers will receive a 3.38 percent increase.
As for the contract negotiated with the WW-P Administrators Association, the members of the union will also forgo the previously negotiated salary increases for the first six pay periods in 2010-’11 and reduce professional conference benefits, for a savings of approximately $80,000.
The administrators’ contracts were also extended a year. Now, for the 2011-’12 school year, the members of the union will receive a salary increase of 2.9 percent.
The move was criticized by residents and board member Todd Hochman, who said the new contract should have included contributions to health benefits from teachers and administrators, which is not required under the terms of the renegotiated contract. Residents around the community have pointed to private sector companies, which have frozen salaries all together, and criticized the board for agreeing to any salary increase at all in the extended year.
While the board is still trying to talk to the teachers, even if there is an agreement, it would not lessen the tax burden, according to Marathe. If the teachers agree to a freeze, it would mean a return for saving the jobs that would otherwise be lost, he told the News earlier this month.
A contract was also approved for the WW-P Service Association, which called for a salary freeze for the 2010-’11 school year, but included a salary increase in 2011-’12 for all employees except the custodians and maintenance workers.
Voters will also choose between five candidates who are running for three seats in West Windsor, and two who are running for one seat in Plainsboro. In West Windsor, incumbents Hemant Marathe, of Clarendon Court and Robert Johnson, of Van Wyck Drive, will face challengers Rakesh Kak, of Le Parc Court; Vijay Kanchi, of Greylynne Drive; and Scott Powell, of Cambridge Way. In Plainsboro, Ellen Walsh, of Petty Road will face challenger Harshad Tanna, of Krebs Road.
Johnson, an 18-year resident of West Windsor, retired from the U.S. Marshals Service last summer and currently works as a financial specialist in criminal and civil forfeiture under contract with the U.S. Department of Justice. He has served on the board since 2004, where he has served on the administration and facilities committee and the finance committee, where he is currently chairman. His wife is an investigator with the state Commission of Investigations, and the couple has a daughter at High School South.
Kak moved to the township in 2004. Kak is currently a managing director at View Partners, an investment banking firm in New York. Kak and his wife, Suneeta, who works for a software company in Plainsboro, have two children attending Dutch Neck Elementary and Grover Middle schools.
Vijay Kanchi, a telecommunications consultant, moved to the township in 2006. He and his wife, Jaya, a substitute teacher, have two children, both of whom attend Maurice Hawk.
Marathe, a 16-year resident of West Windsor, and his wife, Punit, who works as a scientist at Bristol Myers Squibb, have four daughters, the oldest of whom graduated from North and is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania. His second daughter is a sophomore at North, while the youngest — twins — are in the seventh grade at Community Middle School.
For the last three years, he has been a partner in a company that is a wholesale distributor of Indian groceries. For 15 years before that, he owned a consulting company that worked with electric utilities. Marathe has served on the board for the last nine years, from 2001 to 2010, where he has served as president since 2004. He served one year on the board’s finance committee and for eight years on the curriculum committee.
Scott Powell, a West Windsor resident for four years, is a product manager for Prudential Financial. He and his wife, Michele, an operations director for a professional trade organization, have two children — a seven-year-old who attends first grade at Maurice Hawk Elementary and a four-year-old in pre-school.
Harshad Tanna moved to Plainsboro in 2001. He is a senior scientist with Telcordia Technologies. He and his wife, Mauna, an accountant with Marriott, have two daughters — one in high school and one in middle school.
Ellen Walsh, a 12-year resident of Plainsboro, and her husband, Quentin, who works in the financial/accounting field, have two children, both of whom are graduates of South. Walsh currently serves as an adjunct assistant professor of economics at Rider University. Walsh has served on the school board for the past six years and has chaired the administration and facilities committee for the last five.
