Voters Approve Lawrence Township School Budget

(Wednesday, April 27) approved the township school district’s budget for the 2011-2012 school year by a total of 999 votes in favor versus 478 votes against.

Those 1,477 votes account for just 7.59 percent of the 19,450 registered voters in the township.

School district officials had predicted that voter turnout might be light given that the budget had been crafted to keep the tax hike as low as possible and was not surrounded by any significant controversy. The district made numerous efforts at school board meetings and other events to provide voters with a detailed explanation of the items included in the budget.   

“Lawrence Township voters are really smart. They knew we put together a frugal budget that still supports our academic programs,” township Board of Education President Laura Waters said after all the votes were counted in the township clerk’s office at the municipal building this evening.

, a total of $57,383,635 will be raised through taxes, necessitating a 3-cent increase to the township’s school tax rate.

The new tax rate of $2.33 per $100 of assessed property value means the owner of a house assessed at the township’s current average of $161,292 will pay about $3,758 in school 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 was needed, district officials 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.

Voters today also filled three seats on the school board by electing incumbents Ginny Bigley and Bill Michaelson and newcomer Deborah Cherry. The race was uncontested. Each seat is a three-year term.

Bigley earned 1,077 votes, Michaelson 1,034 and Cherry 1,031.