Additional State Aid Split for Tax Relief, 2012-13 Budget

With an additional $1.3 million in state aid allocated to the , the Board of Education voted Monday to split it between tax relief for this year and allocations for next year's budget—despite residents’ pleas for it to go back to the schools.

“I am not a teacher, but I do have two children in the district, and the way to disperse this money, it’s a huge number of conflicting issues, but as a taxpayer I can say, please do not hand it back to me,” resident Ed Horch said to applause from the audience. “I’m sure everyone in this room can figure out a way to spend the money in a way that will annoy the fewest number of people.”

On July 12, the district received notification that, based on the budget approved by Gov. Chris Christie, Bridgewater-Raritan would receive an additional $1.3 million in aid, said business administrator Peter Starrs.

With that money, Starrs said, there were five options the board could consider, but an overall decision had to be made Monday, particularly if the decision was to use money for tax relief—information about changes to the tax bill has to be relayed to the township by Tuesday as it gets ready to send out the tax bills.

The first solution, Starrs said, would be to use 100 percent of it for 2011-2012 tax relief; the second would be to use a portion of the state aid for the current year’s relief and the remainder for additional expenditures in the 2011-2012 school year.

“That would require county superintendent approval,” Starr said. “And in the guidance we received from the state, it indicates that we must seek and receive approval through a submission of the revised budget, and the county will ensure that the use is affective and efficient.”

The third option, Starrs said, would be to use some of the money for tax relief and the rest toward developing the 2012-2013 budget. The fourth and fifth options, he said, involved deferring all the money to the 2012-2013 budget or the 2013-2014 budget, respectively.

“The recommendation from the administration is option number four, to defer any decision to 2012,” he said. “We feel this would provide us with the most flexibility for the money.”

But the board decided on the third option, putting $568,455 toward tax relief for the 2011-2012 school year, and $731,545 toward the 2012-2013 budget, with the decision of how to use that money postponed for now.

“I would rather give back then spend in the 2011-2012 budget,” said board of education member Lynne Hurley.

But residents attending the meeting, many of the about 50 people being both residents and teachers in the district, said they would rather see the money put back in the schools and for the teachers.

“I find it a little insulting to show up tonight, the fact that you are considering tax relief is so puzzling because you have professionals that are so dedicated,” said teacher, and Rolling Knolls Way resident, Sue Cacciatore. “We worked really hard with you to pass our budget, and look what happened. I feel like that is dismissed when you talk about giving everyone $20 back. To me, that shouldn’t be part of the discussion.”

Residents applauded comments from others who said they are seeing the educational opportunities for the students disappearing because the money is not going back into the schools.

For Cacciatore, a teacher at the , she said she has seen the building change dramatically with the loss of clubs and organizations.

“I love my profession and I love my colleagues, and I feel like something’s got to change,” she said. “It’s impacting our young community, and I don’t know why that’s not more of our discussion.”

Pat Friedman, of Old York Road in Raritan, said he wanted the board to focus on intangibles in particular. He said he understands that the board is trying to help the residents, but there’s the other problem of maintaining the quality of the schools and the ability of teachers to do their jobs.

“I live from day to day being a teacher, and my wife works two jobs,” he said. “My problem is I’ve been able to be there, run a club and donate my time because I’ve had the ability to do so, but I’m being brought to a point where I have to make a decision—am I going to take care of my own kids and get another job to pay their college tuitions, or do I keep my promise to the kids I teach and be there for them after classes?”

“You need to take these intangibles in mind when you make decisions, of what’s going to go on in people like my position,” he added. “I am begging you to take into consideration how many people are in the same position. When you’re looking at money and budgets, what can we do to maintain the quality of the schools?”

This led into a bigger discussion about morale of the district staff, and the issue of negotiations with the , which are currently stalled.

“We had been told there would be a 0 percent increase for salaries unless money could be found elsewhere,” said Wingate Drive resident Dave Doheny. “But money has been found several times.”

“We gave up $2 million in concessions, and that’s ignored as having not made an impact, and we find that now you have $1.3 million, and there’s the idea that it’s going to go to tax relief,” he added.

Doheny said he believes that if some of the money is given back to the residents, the district will be lowering the tax base, which will have to be matched in the next budget, and could result either in cuts or higher taxes.

“You’ve already given back to residents, and now you’re going to give back even more and lower the base so you are going to stifle the ability to educate students at the level we’ve been doing,” he said.

As approved by the voters in April, the will only see a 1.5 percent increase in the tax levy, rather than going up to the 2 percent cap mandated by the state. Adding the extra funding from the new state aid will lower it to about a 1 percent increase instead.

Lawton Road resident Bonnie Pearce questioned the original assumption by the district that health care costs would increase by 33 percent—but with changes in carriers and switching plans, the costs did not increase by that much.

“With that and the money here, there is considerable money that could be used in very important ways to help the employees of this district,” she said.

Starrs said it ended up being a 20 percent increase in health care costs for the district.

Ann Rock, a guidance counselor at the middle school, said she believes there is almost a Wall Street model being followed in the district.

“The people at the top get rewarded and people at the bottom get left behind,” she said. “People at the top are getting raises and people at the bottom, nothing for you. That pretty much settles the morale issue.”

“It seems that what we’re trying to do is run a Blue Ribbon school district on a Walmart budget,” she added.

B-REA president, and high school teacher, Steve Beatty said that 0 percent was set for staff raises unless the money could be found.

“Money has been found several times over to be able to be used in negotiations for fair equitable increases for the staff,” he said. “I think it’s time to look at the promises that were made. We do value education here. Several millions of dollars could be given for equitable raises and we still come in at a 0 percent increase for the budget from last year.”

Board president Evan Lerner said discussions with the B-REA are currently stalled and they couldn't really discuss them in the open session, but the board would be willing to sit down again with the union in the coming week.

Raritan Borough councilman Greg Lobell said he understands why people are discussing morale at the schools—unfortunately, he does not believe money should be used for salaries.

“I walk around town and talk to constituents, and they’re having low morale,” he said. “I have senior citizens who haven’t had a social security raise in two years. I think we seriously need to consider tax relief and think about people who don’t have students in the schools.”

Before making its decision, the board discussed several options, volleying between deferring all of the money, and using some for expenditures, namely purchasing textbooks that had been deferred for the year.

“We have delayed that purchase by a year,” said board vice president Patrick Breslin. “Why continue to push things out when we can take care of them?

But Cheryl Dyer, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said there is a process when purchasing textbooks, including changing the curriculum. So if they planned the purchase of books with money in the 2011-2012 budget, she said, they wouldn’t actually purchase the items until next May after curriculum is changed.

“There’s a process in textbook review that takes time,” she said. “The net affect would not be realized until 2012 anyway, so one of the things we could do by deferring the money is determine that $285,000 of the textbook reduction would be allocated toward them.”

Hurley said she would have been in favor of leaving the 2011-2012 budget alone for now.

“The budget was supported by the taxpayers, and they haven’t received their tax bills yet, so if we put money in tax relief for the upcoming year, they will still see an increase, but they may not notice the relatively small decrease,” she said. “If we push to use the money the following year, that gives a lot of opportunity for flexibility, and still gives the opportunity to give money back to the taxpayers.”

Breslin said he is concerned that if there is tax relief given this year, and the state aid doesn’t come next year, the taxpayers will suffer then.

“If we use this for tax relief now, then effectively if the budget and state aid remain the same next year, we would be immediately behind for an equivalent amount,” he said. “We would be giving it back this July and taking it back next July. I don’t think that’s a fair way to treat people.”

For Lerner, he believed splitting the money would be the best option for the residents.

“The worst thing to do is to give back the full amount and next year not get the state aid and find ourselves behind the eight ball,” he said. “That puts is in a worse place than if we never got the money. I have heard that taxpayers are having trouble, and I am looking at some kind of compromise.”

Still, Breslin was looking to clear up old business, and board member Arvind Mathur said he would also like to consider using some of the money for capital projects that are not yet completed.

Mathur said the district is still trying to finish a project to repair the roof at the middle school that they should move forward on.

“If we do that now, it will help next year’s budget because there will be less money spent in the capital budget,” he said. “Why not spend some now on that, give some for textbooks and spend the rest on tax relief.”

But Starrs said changing the budget to account for these expenditures, and having to go before the county superintendent, would not be the wisest thing to do.

And in the end, the board opted to split the money.

“What is important is if we are rolling the money over, it is not necessarily rolled over to tax relief,” Lerner said. “It is important to say that we understand and are doing a portion for tax relief, but next year money could go into the roof or something.”

“There is a chance that if we roll it over and don’t use it for tax relief, the people in Trenton will notice that,” he added. “It is something we need to consider.”