Fate of FRHSD budget remains up in the air

By mark rosman & Dave Benjamin

Staff Writers

Based on an apparent lack of consensus among the eight towns that make up the Freehold Regional High School District, it appears that the district’s 2003-04 budget will be reviewed by the Monmouth County superintendent of schools.

The eight towns that make up the FRHSD failed to reach a consensus last week on the amount to be cut from the budget, which was defeated in the April 15 election. That decision could now be left to the county superintendent, who is the local representative of the state Department of Education.

Initially, the municipal governing bodies in Englishtown, Farmingdale, Freehold Township, Freehold Borough and Marlboro each passed a resolution authorizing a cut of $937,000 to be made in the district’s budget for the coming school year. That action followed meetings between representatives of the constituent communities and FRHSD administrators.

The budget proposed by the FRHSD Board of Education totaled $135 million and called for a tax levy of $89 million. The resolutions passed in those five communities call for a total budget of $134.1 million and a tax levy of $88.6 million.

The $937,000 cut would come from the following areas:

• Tuition - county vocational tuition to be paid by the county, instead of the FRHSD; $350,000 cut;

• Transportation salaries - eliminate one of the two after-school activity bus runs; $150,000 cut;

• Media salaries - eliminate 11th month of six media specialists; $42,000 cut;

• Guidance salaries - eliminate 11th month of six guidance supervisors; $50,000 cut;

• Operations and maintenance equipment - defer purchase of snow plow, floor burnishers, tractors and other custodial/grounds maintenance equipment; $180,000 cut;

• Supervisors of instruction - defer hiring of three subject supervisors who positions will be vacant on July 1; $150,000 cut;

• Health benefits - savings realized by not filling supervisory positions; $15,000 cut.

After passing a resolution on May 13 calling for $1.18 million to be cut from the FRHSD budget, the Manalapan Township Committee held a special meeting Monday afternoon and voted 3-0 to join the communities that had agreed on the $937,000 cut.

Manalapan Mayor Drew Shapiro said the vote on the higher amount was taken based on misinformation supplied by a member of the Howell Township Council.

Howell Deputy Mayor Peter Tobasco said that after conducting a thorough review of the FRHSD budget on May 13 with Superintendent of Schools James Wasser, he believed the $937,000 reduction was a significant cut. He attended Monday’s meeting in Manalapan and apol-ogized for the misunderstanding that apparently caused Manalapan not to initially go along with the $937,000 cut.

Tobasco said he believed the Howell council would vote on Monday evening to go along with the $937,000 reduction.

On May 14, the Colts Neck Township Committee voted 4-1 on a resolution calling for $1.53 million to be cut from the FRHSD budget. The cuts included the $937,000 in items mentioned above, plus the following:

• Instructional - salary breakage due to attrition, retirement, etc.; $200,000 cut;

• Supervisory staff - restructuring; $250,000 cut;

• Administrative staff - make salary increases more in line with cost of living; $150,000 cut.

Colts Neck Committeewoman Lillian Burry said, "We were responding to the voters. It’s unfortunate that it has to come to this. What we have to do is change the way we get money to fund education."

Burry said that with a budget of $135 million, the majority of the Colts Neck committee did not believe that seeking a $1.5 million cut would cripple the district.

Committeeman Benjamin Forester voted no to the $1.5 million cut, according to Burry.

During the meeting in Manalapan on Monday, Committeewoman Rebecca Aaronson said she would reach out to Colts Neck officials that day in an attempt to determine if they would reconsider their vote and join the other seven FRHSD communities in approving the $937,000 reduction. Monday night was the deadline for governing bodies to certify a tax rate for the coming year.

A consensus among all eight towns on what to cut would keep the budget from being reviewed by the county superintendent.

Wasser attributed some of the district’s budget squeeze to state aid that has remained flat while 1,000 additional students were expected to enroll in the district over the 2002-03 and 2003-04 school years.

"We did not get any more state aid and we have another thousand students in two years," said Wasser. "We’re using the state aid [amounts] from two years ago, and we’re going to have another thousand students, 500 next year [alone]. How do they expect me to educate the kids with the same amount of money? I cut all the frills out of the budget to keep the tax rates in most cases from 3 to 6 cents and Manalapan 9 and Farmingdale 25.

"Now they’re asking me to cut things that I don’t have in the budget and it’s decisions now with staffing and programs," he said. "Whether it’s supervisory staff, teaching, or hurting programs for kids."

Hearing of the vote taken in Colts Neck regarding the FRHSD budget, Wasser said, "I said to them when we got to the number, we had a chance of going with the $937,000 [in cuts]. Now, Colts Neck is saying $1.5 million. When we discussed more than a million at the table, I told them that the only other way I can cut things is to take summer school which is $82,000, adult education which is $76,000, and if you really want a big ticket item to get it up to the $1.5 million you’re going to have to take [away] freshman sports.

"I told them that at the table and they all said, ‘We don’t want to take summer school. We don’t want to take away athletics. Take something else.’ "

Wasser said there is nothing else he can take.

"I’m not cutting custodians; I [just] got additional square footage on each building," the superintendent said. "My administrative costs are one of the lowest in Monmouth County for the pupils that we have."

Wasser said, "When I became superintendent, I cut eight administrative positions that don’t exist in this district any more, and I didn’t replace them with high paying positions. I took out the supervisor of art, then the supervisor of music. They were making $100,000 salaries. They’re not there anymore. [Those subjects areas] are under another administrator’s um­brella. I took out the adult school princi­pal. That was an $80,000 to $90,000 a year job. I have a person doing it on an hourly basis for $20 to $30 an hour."

The superintendent said he cut build­ings and grounds supervisory staff, even though he has more fields to care for and although there are six high schools now, he reduced the number of buildings and grounds supervisors from six to three.

"I don’t know what they’re talking about in Colts Neck that there’s more to cut there, because I can’t cut with all the requirements of the state and now the new federal legislation, No Child Left Behind," Wasser said. "How in the world am I go­ing to produce the results that are expected by the state and federal government in maintaining this district’s reputation as an excellent school district, if they continue to cut people?

"We will not be able to perform up to the levels that we are performing [now]," he said. "You will destroy the academic program, and for what? How much money are you going to save on the tax rate if you go from $937,000 to $1.5 million? It’s not even a half a penny. To me, it makes no sense. It’s not sound, and I don’t agree with the people in Colts Neck at this point, and I don’t agree with anyone else who wants to go above that $937,000.

"Unfortunately, it will go to the [education] commissioner, and my biggest fear is what I told people the first day the budget was defeated," Wasser said. "If we don’t get this done and do it at our level, which is our responsibility, [the] schools, with the Board of Education, with the mayors, then shame on us because it goes to the commissioner and somebody that does not know our school district is going to make a determination on the cuts, and it’s non-appealable.

"Then I don’t want to hear the issues about who [is] to blame," said Wasser. "The blame is that we did not solve the problem in our own home. We should have solved it in our own family. Instead, we let it be solved by somebody else."