School Board Approves Budget, 3 Cent Tax Rate Hike

Public comment during the special school budget hearing held by the Lawrence Township Board of Education Tuesday evening (March 29) lasted less than two minutes and consisted of only one speaker.

Graf Avenue resident Paul Palombi made his comments after district Superintendent Philip Meara and district Business Administrator Thomas Eldridge concluded a presentation outlining the proposed budget for the 2011-2012 school year and explaining why a 3-cent increase to the township’s school tax rate is necessary.

“I just want to say thank you to the board,” Palombi said, voicing his willingness to pay the 3-cent increase in order to avoid teacher layoffs and ensure the continuation of sports and extracurricular activities for the district’s students. “Now it’s up to us. You did your job. Now it’s up to us to get this passed. So I just want to commend you on an excellent job. Hopefully, we can get this past and move forward.”

After no one else spoke up when President Laura Waters asked if any of the dozens of other people who were gathered for the hearing at Lawrence High School had any questions or comments, school board members unanimously voted to approve the 2011-2012 budget of nearly $65 million.

Of that amount, a total of $57,383,635 will be raised through taxes.

The budget now goes to the registered voters of Lawrence Township to either approve or reject during the annual school elections on April 27. In addition to deciding on the budget, .  

“We’ve worked very hard… there have been many meetings on this and public sessions with the board. I think we have the best budget that we can have, especially in these times,” Meara said.

If the budget passes, based on the new tax rate of $2.33 per $100 of assessed property value, the owner of a house assessed at the township’s current average of $161,292 would pay about $3,758 in taxes for the 2011-2012 school year. That’s an increase of $48.38 based on the same property assessment and the old $2.30 tax rate.

While the 2011-2012 budget is actually a few hundred thousand dollars less than the current school year’s budget, the 3-cent tax rate increase is needed, Meara and Eldridge explained, to simply maintain the district’s current level of staffing and keep in place valued amenities like smaller class sizes, courtesy busing, full-day kindergarten and extracurricular programs in the wake of the that Lawrence Township has experienced over the course of the last two years.

 “We had to increase our rate to get the same revenue,” Eldridge said. “So when the newspapers report that the budget is going up 3 cents, the inclination for most people is to think the school district is asking for more. In our case, that’s not necessarily so. We had to ask for more, in terms of tax rate, just to get the same amount of money.”

The 2011-2012 tax rate was initially expected to go up to $2.35 but the district was able to shave 2 cents off after learning that, under the proposed state budget, the state plans to give Lawrence Township schools an increase of $672,646 in aid over the amount of aid received for the current year.

Credited with helping keep the tax rate from increasing further were: staff salary freezes, $400,000 in staff contributions toward health insurance costs, decreased administrative costs, and the success of the district’s solar panel initiative.

The solar initiative was the focus of a celebration that preceded the budget hearing. Donning sunglasses for the event, Meara, Eldridge and board members celebrated the fact that in just one year’s time, solar panels installed on the roofs of township schools have generated over $1 million in revenue through the sale of Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs).

“In July 2004 in an attempt to address a very crushing loss of revenue from Washington Township students leaving our high school, our [school] board began exploring the possibility of installing solar panels on our seven schools,” Meara said, providing a brief history of the project.

In December 2006, he said, township voters passed a referendum funding work that, in part, replaced the roofs of some of the schools and made them capable of supporting solar panels in the future. Then, in April 2008, more than 70 percent of township voters approved another referendum that authorized the installation of solar panels at the schools, he said.

In promoting the project prior to the 2008 referendum, district officials went throughout the community to explain how money could be generated by the solar panels and how the environment could benefit. “We promised that our solar project would avoid over 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, it would reduce our dependency on foreign oil because it was the equivalent of not driving over 27 million miles and it would be as if we planted over 3,000 acres of trees,” he said.

For their support of the solar initiative and helping the district overcome the financial hardships of the loss of the students from Washington (now Robbinsville) Township, Cardinal Wing Awards were presented to state Sen. Shirley Turner, district facilities director Bo Hitchcock, business administrator Eldridge and the school board members who served at the time the 2008 solar referendum

Meara noted that the award is in the shape of a cardinal’s wing because the bird is the school district’s mascot and “wings describe what these individuals do for our township – they enable flight, influence direction, promote stability and provide protection.”

Meara summed up the budget presentation by urging residents to vote on April 27: “Our budget increased by 3 cents because of the change in ratables. We increased by zero. So, actually, if we were in total control of our budget, we would be giving you money back. But that 3 cent increase is a reality. That’s what we need to make this budget happen… Everything we said to you tonight only happens if the budget passes… If the budget fails, it goes to town council to make recommendations about cuts… So everything we talked about tonight is dependent of the budget passing.”

Board member Michael Brindle later echoed those comments, saying: “Having been here for 21 years now, I want to stress the importance of voting. The board sits for a long time to do this budget. We are taxpayers – people sometimes forget that. Every board member is also a taxpayer and does not want his or her taxes going up anymore than anybody else does. But we truly make an effort to bring the budget in at the lowest-possible number we can.”

He recalled how years ago the budget of a neighboring district failed by one vote. “Please, ladies and gentlemen, go vote.”

Also during the meeting:

• The board voted to award Halecon Inc. a $344,350 contract for the renovation of the track at Lawrence High School. The Bridgewater-based company was “the lowest responsible and responsive bidder.”
• The board voted to award a contract to the Trenton-based architectural firm of Fraytak Veisz Hopkins Duthie P.C. to perform design work for the project to replace the boilers at Eldridge Park Elementary School. The total amount of the contract will be 6.95 percent of the final total construction cost.
• The board voted to accept a $255 grant from the Lawrence Township Education Foundation to cover the costs of transportation for two student field trips, and a $6,863 Rider University grant to fund teacher professional development.

Click here to listen to audio from the board meeting.

To view the meeting agenda, click here.

For 2011-2012 budget information, click here.