Schools
boards drafting cutbacks
Long list of programs at stake as
officials blame state for static aid, spending limits
Friday, February 24, 2006 • BY JOHN MOONEY •
Star-Ledger Staff
It's still early in the budget season,
but Westfield's superintendent is talking about trimming
intramural programs and elective classes at his high
school.
Cherry Hill's board this week discussed
maybe cutting back elementary school arts and high school
sports teams.
In South Orange-Maplewood, a list of
proposed savings went before the board last week that
included closing the alternative high school and eliminating
foreign-language instruction in the elementary
schools.
"It is as tough a budget as I've seen in
the sense the level of possible reductions is so high," said
Steve Latz, chairman of the board's finance committee.
"There aren't any easy answers to preserving
programs."
As school boards begin to draft spending
plans for next year, it's a bleak time in many suburban
districts that have warned of the fiscal squeeze and now are
starting to see it in hard choices about not just proposed
programs and staffing but existing ones.
"These are things we have in place," said
Westfield Superintendent William Foley, pondering whether to
cut a guidance counselor, for instance, or a field hockey
coach.
"I don't want to hurt the key academic
programs," he said, "but we're going to need to go around
the edges."
The causes of the fiscal crunch are many,
but local school officials place much of the blame on the
state and how it funds public education.
Faced with its own escalating budget
deficit, the state under former Govs. James E. McGreevey and
Richard Codey have provided virtually no increase in state
aid to a vast majority of districts for the last four years,
leaving it to local taxpayers to make up the
difference.
And this coming year looks no better,
with Gov. Jon Corzine's administration facing its own
deficit and giving no indication they will provide much
relief to schools either. Even urban districts that fall
under the Abbott vs. Burke school equity rulings face no
guarantees of additional money.
Corzine's spokesman was quiet last week
about the new governor's intentions for schools as he crafts
his state budget plan, and lobbyists said the silence has
been ominous.
"Given the way school districts have been
treated the last few years, I'm not sure no news is good
news," said Lynne Strickland, executive director of the
Garden State Coalition of Schools.
But state aid is only part of the trouble
for the more affluent districts that get little of it
anyway. New limits enacted by McGreevey have restricted
schools' overall spending and also key line items within
those budgets for administration and surpluses.
Known simply by its Senate bill number,
S1701 has been a constant gripe of the suburban districts
that were used to building some flexibility into their
spending, with their taxpayers more or less able -- if not
willing -- to foot the extra bill.
Districts received word from the state
this week that spending increases next year would be limited
to the region's consumer price index of 4.04 percent, with a
few caveats for enrollment growth and other
factors.
In contrast, officials say their bills --
for insurance, fuel and special education -- have far
exceeded that. New teacher contracts also have contained
salary increases averaging about 4.7 percent over the next
three years, further pressuring budgets.
The Garden State Coalition this month
analyzed statewide spending patterns since 2002 and found
health benefit costs alone amounted to 33 percent of the
overall school spending increase for non-Abbott
districts.
Rising special-education costs amounted
to another 28 percent of the total.
South Orange-Maplewood's struggle will be
getting under the 4.04 percent cap at a time when just
maintaining the programs they have for another year would
require as much as a 10 percent increase, officials
said.
"We know that's not possible," said Karla
Milanette, the district's business administrator.
So with few in its audience, the board
met late into the evening last week pondering the choices
ahead. The first savings were mostly so-called
"efficiencies," moves such as consolidating administrative
positions and bringing some special-education students from
outside schools back into the district's own
programs.
As they struck closer and closer to
programs that affect the day-to-day instruction, though, the
higher the stakes. The alternative program for about 50
students who have had trouble at the Columbia High School
has been seen as a success, for instance, but officials said
those children may have to be absorbed back into the high
school.
"That would be a real loss," said
Superintendent Peter Horoschak of the move, which would save
$611,660.
Yet, framing the dilemma facing many
districts in the months ahead, board members in South
Orange-Maplewood also pointed out who was footing the bill,
even a reduced one.
"This is still a 6.1 percent tax
increase," said board president David Frazer. "That's
nothing to sneeze at."
John Mooney covers education. He may be reached at
jmooney@starledger.com or (973) 392-1548.
© 2006 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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