School Board Approves Amended 2012-2013 Budget

During a special meeting held last night (Tuesday, May 8) the Lawrence Township Board of Education unanimously approved the amended 2012-2013 school budget.

The meeting follows the , which was .

While the amended budget is $500,000 less than originally proposed, the school district and school board exercised their legal right to make the cuts where they wanted to as opposed to following the suggestions made by council, such as the council’s recommendation that the district use more of its capital reserve surplus fund as a source of revenue in the budget.

By law, the district needed only to comply with the order to reduce overall spending by $500,000.

“After the meeting with town council, we went back and made changes to our budget,” district Business Administrator Thomas Eldridge said before the board voted. “Of course, we made the changes in the amount of $500,000, as recommended by council. However, the changes were not exactly in-line with council. Notably, we did not deplete any of our reserves. Instead, we elected to make the changes as we originally proposed them, totaling $500,000.

“We decreased our school administration costs by $50,000. Indeed, we did defer replacement of our press box at the field house for $60,000. We reduced our equipment lines, deferring that for approximately $55,000. We reduced our supply lines across the board to the tune of approximately $120,000,” Eldridge explained. “Our professional development budget and some of our PD expenditures were reduced a total of $8,600.

“We had some support staff position that we eliminated for approximately $54,000 and we did some movement in terms of shifts of our staff that will save us $23,000,” he continued. “We have a decrease in our electrical budget of $75,000 afforded us by favorable bids, and we reduced one position that had not been filled. So we eliminated a vacant position; we elected not to replace that position. All told, a $500,000 reduction in our 2012-2013 budget. That budget, as it is, is now printed. It’s on my desk in duplicate, waiting to be signed by the superintendent pending the board’s actions this evening. It will be submitted tomorrow if approved by the board.”

The vacant position that was eliminated was a janitorial position, and other staff reductions will be done through attrition, he later explained.

“We’re approximately a million dollars under our [2 percent tax levy] cap at this point,” he said. “That’s on top of being under $2.3 million already from the previous year. So, all told, we’re $3.3 million aggregate under cap over two years.”

Eldridge also noted that the amended 2012-2013 budget is now “below our 2009-2010 budget. So this budget, as proposed, will be lower than it was four years prior.”

“I would like to compliment the administration for acting so promptly, twice, and never losing sight of the fact we’re in business to educate kids, first and foremost,” board member Leon Kaplan said.

Board member Jo Ann Groeger echoed those sentiments, telling Eldridge, “I would like to thank you for being so fiscally responsible and for being so far-sighted. You were ahead of the curve. You just keep us on task. So thank you for that.”

“Thank you for the comment. One of the things that I love about doing this is I follow the program people, and the program people are the conscientious folks who make it happen. So with [Superintendent] Crystal [Lovell] and [Director of Student Services] Erin [Servillo] and [Director of Instructional Services] Andrew [Zuckerman], we all work as a team. Even though I get to write it down, those are the folks that are trying to figure out how to make it happen with less,” Eldridge answered.

“One of the things I think that doesn’t come out very often that really should come out is….this is somewhere around my 15th year doing this, and it’s been a pleasure over the last four years to work with a board that has a steady set of goals. We don’t have a new flavor of the year every time the board has a reorganization meeting. We’re focused and that focus, I think, gave us all an enormous measure of comfort when we went through a difficult time,” he continued. “Our guiding light was what our mission was, as stated by our board goals. I know, for me personally and professionally, that helped me focus on where we had to go. As opposed to what we couldn’t do, it was what can we do. That’s unique. If you’re a board member, you may not know how unique that is. Most of the times, in boards in the past, every year we had a new set of goals, a new set of budget goals. We haven’t had that here. We have a consistent set of goals…”

Pepper Evans, immediate past president of the , also offered her appreciation to the district administrators and the school board.

“I want to say – as a parent of children in the district, as a township resident, as someone who is a big fan of Lawrence Township Public Schools – how much I appreciate all the hard work and time that went into making this budget work with the least impact on the kids,” she said.

Several personnel items were approved by the board last night as well. Among them was one adjusting Superintendent Crystal Lovell’s salary to $165,850 – an increase of $850 – for the contract period July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2013. Her current three-year contract with the district expires June 30, 2014.

The board also approved the “reduction in force” dismissal of Marisa Buquicchio, a part-time faculty member who teachers Italian at Lawrence High School. The reduction is the result of not enough students having enrolled for Italian language classes next year and the district needing only one teacher of Italian. If enrollment increases and a second Italian teacher is again needed, she will be offered the job first.   

See Also:

• May 4: “”
• May 1: ""
• April 27: ""
• April 23: ""
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• April 20: ""
• April 18: ""
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• Jan. 11: “”