School Board Sends Budget to Voters for Approval

Lawrence residents will get final say on a proposed $67.17 million school budget that maintains programs but asks for a 1.3 percent tax increase because of a shrinking township tax base.

After a formal public review of the proposed 2012-2013 school year budget Thursday night at Lawrence High School, the six members of the Lawrence Township Board of Education present unanimously voted their approval of the budget.

With that action by the board, the $67.17 million budget – which includes a 3-cent increase to the township’s school tax rate – now goes to township voters April 17.   

(Audio of the budget hearing can be found in the media box at the right, along with a copy of the official minutes from the meeting and various budget-related documents. Also available is the agenda for the next regular school board meeting, which will be held this evening, April 2.)  

The 3-cent hike will increase the school tax rate to $2.36 per $100 of assessed property value, meaning that the owner of a home assessed (for tax purposes) at the township average of $160,828 will pay about $3,795.54 in school taxes this year, or about $48 more than last year.

During calendar year 2012, a total of $59,702,164 will need to be raised through taxes to support public school operations. That amount, according to the PowerPoint presentation given Thursday by district Superintendent Crystal Lovell and Business Administrator Tom Eldridge, is actually $27,584 less than the amount raised through school taxes in calendar year 2011.

While the amount of tax money the district actually needs has not gone up, the 3-cent tax rate increase is needed because Lawrence Township by residential and commercial property owners. Had township ratables remained unchanged, the 3-cent school tax hike would not be needed.   

“When we say we need 3 cents due to the ratables, sometimes people say, ‘You’re always asking for more, more, more.’ We’re not really asking for more,” Lovell explained Thursday. “If you look at how the ratables work, basically when the property values go down it’s the same number of homes assessed at a lower value. The people who live in those homes have to make up for that assessment. So you end up paying a larger share of the pie. Even though the school district isn’t asking for more money, because of the ratable decrease, it does come out to be more money [paid individually in taxes].”

Overall, because of successful tax appeals and other factors, Lawrence Township’s tax base has decreased more than $167 million since2007, when the total assessed valuation of the township was $2.695 billion.

During Thursday’s presentation, Lovell noted that the 2012-2013 budget is $488,653 below the state’s 2 percent tax levy increase cap. “Just because we can go up to cap doesn’t mean that we should go up to cap,” she explained. “It really depends on our needs. We sat down and spent a lot of time working as a team to determine what our needs were and right now our needs are $500,000 underneath the cap.”

While some faculty members may not have their contracts renewed due to “performance issues” and be replaced with new staff members, and other staffers may be reassigned to address changing needs in the district, there will be no actual personnel cuts, Lovell stressed.

After the PowerPoint presentation was over, school board President Laura Waters welcomed members of the public to ask questions. Only one audience member, Review Avenue resident Carol Harle, a former township mayor and councilwoman, stepped forward. She questioned business administrator Eldridge about the aid the district has received from the state.

“You got that million dollars additional in state aid. Why didn’t you use a part of that to give Lawrence Township taxpayers immediate tax relief?” she asked.

“We actually did use all of that money and more as tax relief,” Eldridge responded.

He explained that $9.1 million out of the $67.17 million 2012-2013 budget is in the form of non-tax revenue, including $3,337,252 in state aid and $5,650,000 from the district’s surplus fund.

He also noted that after the 2011-2012 budget was adopted was placed into the district’s surplus fund for use in helping to balance the 2012-2013 budget.

“This is one of the largest infusions of surplus funds that you’ll ever see in our school district budget,” Eldridge said. “And the place that we got those funds was from not spending the state aid that we got in this current year, right now, and using it for tax relief. So anytime we use surplus instead of raising taxes, we’re using that surplus for tax relief.”

Lovell and Eldridge will also discuss the school district budget at two upcoming PTO meetings that will be open to the general public. Those meetings will take place at 7 p.m. on April 3 at Eldridge Park Elementary School and at 7 p.m. on April 4 at Slackwood Elementary School.

In addition to voting on the school budget, township voters on April 17 will also (filling three full terms and two unexpired terms). Voters will also be asked to consider a that is unrelated to school operations.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. on April 17.

See Also:

• March 28: “”
• Feb. 29: “”
• Feb. 29: “”
• Feb. 15: “”
• Jan. 11: “”