People are going to be laid off from the school district as a result of this year’s budget crunch, school board members confirmed at Tuesday’s public presentation of their $22 million budget for 2002-2003.
The only question is how many jobs the board has to cut, and that depends on whether or not voters pass the budget during the school board election in April. The layoff numbers will increase if the budget fails.
Board President Michael Pesci said the finance committee had already made the hard choices, but would not indicate how many people will lose their jobs.
“We know what areas we will have to make cuts in, but I don’t think it would be fair to anyone to say who will lose their jobs,” Pesci said.
If the budget passes, board members say, three teaching or administrative positions at the high school would be at risk, and two custodial jobs. The school district could avoid some layoffs by giving teachers part-time duties. If the budget goes down, layoffs would be more certain.
The new budget shows an increase of $1.4 million from last year’s adjusted budget. Last year, voters rejected a similar increase, sending the budget to the Town Council to get cut. The $250,000 cut was the largest in Secaucus history.
The new budget would increase the local tax rate by 48 cents per $100,000 of assessed value. The average assessed value of homes in Secaucus rose over the last few years and is now about $200,000, so the average homeowner can expect an increase in school taxes of about $96. (Property owners pay an overall tax rate that includes town, county and school taxes.) The town budget for fiscal year 2002, which should be introduced on April 9, is expected to remain unchanged.
In presenting the school budget, Pesci said that the finance committee had expected moderate increases until state cuts and insurance premium increases came in.
“Then we realized we were in big, big trouble,” Pesci said. “State aid is flat. Even if everything else had stayed the same, we would still have been behind last year, because we have no additional money.”
Pesci said that the finance committee had estimated an increase in state health insurance premiums of about 8 or 9 percent, then discovered a 22 percent increase. Insurance premiums in this budget are $775,846 more than last year, for a total of $3.2 million. This is about one seventh of the entire school budget.
Cash management, Pesci said, has also suffered due to the slowing economy. Normally, the board has about $2 million in cash on hand to operate. This money is usually invested in short-term bank accounts. Previously, the board got about 6 or 6.5 percent interest. This plummeted to less than a percent.
“That was a big loss,” he said.
Contracted salary adjustments increased this year’s budget by $660,000. This includes teachers, nurse, counselors, administrators, supervisors, clerks, custodians, bus drivers and summer employment.
The cost for state-mandated special education programs also increased by $270,000 this year, and this year’s budget also shows additional workers’ compensation payments of $72,676 more than last year, $55,000 more for facilities improvements and $82,213 more for leased purchase payments.
To compensate for some of these increases, the finance committee managed to trim $209,608 from wages and benefits, $157,803 from supplies and $126,650 from a proposed early retirement program. The district has also cut $57,000 in teacher training and $30,000 from its cafeteria services. The board also agreed to cut $28,000 from various co-curricular activities.
Pesci said the board chose not to increase class size, or to do away with sports, arts and music programs. The board did debate whether or not to close its facilities earlier at night or discontinue opening some schools on Sundays. But since the schools get some revenue from recreation programs for its facilities, the board chose to leave the facilities open.
What makes the school budget painful to local taxpayers is the larger percentage the district needs to raise via taxes. The state average has about 40 cents on every dollar of the budget coming from state and other revenue sources, with 60 percent raised by local property taxes. But because Secaucus receives so little state aid, taxpayers here pay 91 cents on every dollar.
Ventilation clean-up is the second ballot question
When residents have the chance to vote for or against the school budget on April 16, they also will have a second ballot question. This one would allow the school district to expend $175,000 to clean air ducts at the high school. Because of the 3 percent state mandated limit for increases in school spending, the board could not find money in previous budgets to address the duct cleaning. Normally, ducts are cleaned every five to six years. In Secaucus high school, these ducts have not been cleaned since the school opened in 1976.
“For the last six years we’ve been trying to get this done,” said Board Member Paul Amico. “We just could never find the money.”
Amico said health officials checked and found no health risk at the high school, but the work needs to be done.
“When we installed the new heating/ventilation system, we hoped that would blow out the dirt inside the ducts,” Amico said. “This did not happen. We discovered there is a build up in the arteries and that we’re getting restrictions in the air flow.”
How to sell the budget to the public
Board member Tom Troyer, who opposed last year’s budget, said he is supporting the budget this year despite in the increases. He noted that it will be more difficult to inform the public because of the lack of a contest in the Board of Education elections. Two incumbents and one non-incumbent are running for three seats.
“Normally, we can use debates to inform the public about the budget,” Troyer said, asking the rest of the board how they can reach out to the public. “Are we going to have presentations for the PTAs?”
Pesci said the presentation would be put cable channel 34. Board Member Edward Rittberg said board members have to begin talking to people about the budget.
“A lot of people will vote for this budget if we explain it,” he said, noting that the board needs to reach out to younger people in particular. “Yes, this budget is high and it will hurt a little bit, but it is worth it for giving our kids an education.”