Tentative Budget Comes in at $110 Million, Proposes Privatizing Services

A tentative school budget proposed at $110, 679,701 includes no reduction to teachers, increases in class sizes or eliminations to student programs. But for the district’s bus drivers, custodians, maintenance workers and instructional and lunch aids, the cost is the proposal to privatize those areas as a method of saving money.

During a budget presentation at Monday’s Board of Education meeting, District Superintendent Jorden Schiff outlined the district’s tentative budget—which could change before it is approved for the April school elections—as having three areas for potential budget savings.  The areas, in order of priority, included examining budget lines for potential savings, finding revenue streams and finding less expensive alternatives to non-instructional services.

While the budget is a 3 percent increase over the $107,200,883 2010-2011 budget—which initially went on the ballot at $108,703,334, and was reduced by $1.5 million by the Township Committee—the proposed tax levy increase meets the state’s two percent levy cap, according to Schiff.   Under the total tentative budget, there is a $1.5 million increase to the tax levy, he added.

The tentative budget includes an about 5 percent increase in state aid. The aid increase amounts to approximately $1 million and comes after a 19 percent aid cut last year.

Under the tentative budget, the tax rate would decrease by 55 cents, going from $2 per $100 of assessed value to $1.45 per $100 of assessed value.  The decrease in the tax rate can be attributed to the county-mandated property tax revaluations.

But the district is still anticipating increases in several areas, including a potential 19 percent increase in insurance premium cost and the need to fund capital projects in several schools.

“We have leaky roofs in our buildings,” Schiff said.  “We have a need to put money into those lines that have been depleted as a result of budget reductions and failures to pass budgets.”

In addition, the district is also anticipating necessary improvements to curriculum and instruction, including staff development, textbooks and curriculum writing and the need to update technology to be consistent with other area schools, Schiff said.

The tentative budget includes reductions to several areas, including $330,000 in reductions from non-essential line items.  Under the proposal, the budget would reduce $23,000 from athletic supplies account, $93,000 from the private tuition, in state account, $55,000 from the other purchased services account, $118,000 from the business purchased services account, and $45,000 from the reimbursement in lieu account.

The second area for budget savings, potential revenue streams, cannot be estimated since it involves a long-term effort by the school district, Schiff said.  However, areas for potential revenue include creating an adult school, offering childcare opportunities and a possibility of full day, paid kindergarten.

Of the proposed revenue streams, the district is actively exploring the full-day kindergarten for the 2011-2012 school year, Schiff said.  During kindergarten registration this year, the district will ask parents to complete an interest survey to see if a tuition-based program is viable for next year, Schiff said.  In addition, the full-day kindergarten would need to be approved by the board before being instituted.

But the most challenging set of savings comes from the possibility of privatizing the district’s custodial and maintenance, food services, transportation services and lunch, library and instructional aides.  By privatizing the services, the district could see about $2.2 million in savings, with about $700,000 coming from custodial and maintenance services, $500,000 from transportation services and $1 million in aides.  The district’s food service provider, another area for potential savings, is already private, meaning the district can bargain with its current provider or look at bidding the contract to a new provider.

While the district would still have the services if privatized, the people currently holding the positions may not be the same, Schiff said.

“It’s a very difficult savings,” Schiff said.  “It’s a very difficult area to reduce.  These are real people in our district, and this is not easy to do.”

The district has about 64 custodians, 27 maintenance workers, 64 lunch aides, 98 instructional aides, eight bus drivers and three bus aides.

For several residents—some who are also district employees—privatizing the services means losing jobs and losing the connection the employees have with the district.

“I really think you should look hard at your non-instructional word to describe our instructional assistants,” Carol Cropley, a resident who works in the autism classrooms at Woods Road School, said.  “I can tell you that tomorrow, I am going to go into my classroom and my assistants are going to go in and they are going to teach them (the students) for two hours.”

The district’s bus drivers, particularly those who transport Special Needs children, said privatizing the bus routes would lead problems with routes.  In addition, many of the drivers undergo classes that are not offered to private employees, including classes on transporting autistic children, proper wheelchair tie-down methods and handling terroristic threats.

“Our department is small,” Barbara Majeski, of Millstone River Road, said.  “We have eight drivers and three aides, but our charges are some of the most vulnerable in this town.  .  .Our parents are reassured knowing their children are being driven by someone with experience.  The children are not just passengers.  They are our child when they come through the door.”

“We care, and you can’t put a price on that,” she added.

One bus driver noted a dilemma for residents where all members of a household work in areas that could be handled privately.

“My husband is also a custodian in the district,” Christine Brzyski, of Duncan Court, said.  “If you privatize, we both lose our jobs.”

The district is required to open negotiations with members of an organization regarding the privatization possibility before taking action.  Schiff said the district was involved in the negotiation process currently.

In addition, the district would offer right of refusal to current employees, meaning they would have the option to remain in their jobs as private employees, Schiff said.

“What we would do is, we would have right of refusal for our current employees, that if you wanted a job, you would have a job available to you,” he said.

The change to private firms would eliminate the familiarity most of the aides, bus drives, custodians and maintenance people have with the district, other residents and employees felt.

“We know who’s taking care our kids,” Georgeanne Belskie, of High Acre Drive, who works in the district, said.  “We’re not going to have somebody show up one day and not show up the next.  We’re people who are paying our bills, paying our taxes.  You want your budget passed but you’re taking away everybody’s livelihood.  .  . It doesn’t seem fair.”

One other resident asked whether switching carriers or negotiating a better rate could mitigate one of the common cost drivers, health care premiums.

“That’s huge,” Tim Jordan, of Brokaw Court, said.  “I can’t think of anyone who gets a 19 percent increase on anything today.  .  .19 percent in today’s economy sounds pretty nuts to me.”

But board members agreed that the budget includes several hard decisions, particularly involving state caps, cost increases and new state requirements.  The budget does not proposed using waivers to accommodate cost increases either, though a district facing large increases in health benefits or salaries can apply for tax levy cap waivers.

“We are constrained by the state in the amount of increased tax we can collect from the state,” Finance Committee Chairman Greg Gillette said.  “This budget collects all the increase tax we can collect and it’s still a balanced budget.  There is no more tax increase we can collect.”

Certain cuts, such as some of the cuts to non-Special Needs instructional aides, come by state mandate, noted board member Marc Rosenberg.  The directive would affect the district’s four library aides, specifically.

“This is probably one of the worst academic management decisions I have heard of,” Rosenberg said.  “The purpose of libraries is to be a center of resource to teach children to research in a digital age.  .  .  This is ridiculous, what this will do.   This is death by 1,000 cuts.”

The budget will likely undergo several changes before it appears on the April ballot, as board member Neil Hudes noted.

“I do not recall a tentative budget ever matching exactly a final budget,” Hudes said.  “There are always tweaks to a tentative budget.  Sometimes those tweaks are big and sometimes those tweaks are little.  I think there are some difficult decisions this board has to make.”

For board President Steven Paget, the tentative budget offers a reality that’s fraught with tough decisions for the district and the board.”

“None of these decisions or choices is being taken lightly,” Paget said.  “We’re trying to find ways to increase revenue because the state is not providing it.  .  .We’re running into the realities.  We’re running into increased cost of insurance.  We’re running into energy costs that are increasing.  According to the state, we must revise our curriculum, so that costs money.  And we need to keep our buildings safe and whole.

“When you run that against a state-required two percent cap, you have to run into some reality and that’s what we’re facing.”

Editor's Note: This article has been altered to reflect the tentative budget's $1.5 million increase to the 2011-2012 tax levy.  The original wording did not specify the increase to the levy clearly.