District to Present Tentative Budget on March 5

The will hold a special meeting on March 5 at in order to present its preliminary budget before that budget must be submitted to the County Business Administrator on March 6. The meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m.

The board unanimously approved a motion to host the extra meeting during its Monday meeting, meaning it will have three meetings during March. Prior to adding the March 5 meeting, the Board of Education had meetings set for March 12 and March 26.

The added meeting isn’t because of a change to the county calendar, however. Instead, it came as a reminder from the Department of Education’s Somerset County Business Administrator.

“It wasn’t changed per se to the fifth,” Hillsborough Business Administrator Aiman Mahmoud said. “He just reminded us that this was due.

Despite getting its state aid numbers on Feb. 23, the district will present a full budget outline during the March 5 meeting. Officials from several departments have been working on the budget in advance of the state releasing its aid figures for the year, District Superintendent Jorden Schiff said.

“The budget planning is structured through the Strategic Plan and the committees, so we are using our committee structure to help plan our budget,” Schiff said. “We are doing it in a way that is putting these three committees together.”

The question for the committees and district departments is how to use the increase in state aid announced last week. Hillsborough is expected to receive $24 million aid for the 2012-13 school year.

“The big thing that is on everyone’s mind is...we did receive a big increase in state aid,” Operations Committee Chairman Greg Gillette said.  “...We also received earlier this year, $1 million in state aid which we have not spent yet, which we are reserving to spend in this budget.”

Prior to receiving its aid figures, district officials budgeted for flat funding, and are now looking at its high-priority items then were not in the preliminary plans. Each board committee created a list of those items, which the Operations Committee is reviewing, Gillette said.

“We also built into the budget tax relief,” Gillette said. “We’re defining tax relief as, going to the tax levy cap and then back down from that number as tax relief. So the tax levy cap allows for a 2 percent increase, so whatever our tax levy is...any amount of money below that is tax relief.”

The tentative budget can change prior to the March 29 deadline for a public hearing on the budget and the March 30 deadline to adopt a budget, Mahmoud and Schiff noted. In addition to the March 5 preliminary budget introduction, the board will have regular meetings on March 12 and March 26, and a discussion at its Community Partnership Meeting on March 13.

“I think the challenge for the Operations Committee over the weekend is going to be addressing the continuing needs of the district while providing property tax relief,” Schiff said.