State Will Set School Budgets for Lenape and Swedesboro-Woolrich

State Education Commissioner Bret Schundler will determine two South Jersey school district budgets that voters rejected and municipal governments failed to resolve.

When rejected by voters, a New Jersey school district’s budget is referred to its municipal government, which can approve or cut the budget. School districts can appeal these budget cuts to the state, but no South Jersey district did so this year. However, in districts that serve more than one municipality, all must agree on the budget.

Schundler will set the Lenape Regional High School District’s budget after Mount Laurel’s municipal council refused to join the district’s seven other municipal councils in approving a spending plan that had been reduced by $1.8 million from the one rejected by voters.

Determined by an apportionment formula based on property values and the number of students sent to the district, Mount Laurel’s proposed Lenape increase, 10.96-cents per $100 of assessed valuation, was more than double the tax hike for other sending municipalities.

The state will also determine the Swedesboro-Woolrich School District budget after municipal officials in neither Swedesboro nor Woolrich acted on it.

Other South Jersey school districts have instituted job cuts, wage freezes, teacher givebacks, school redistricting and other measures in the wake of April budget rejections by voters in 70 of 102 districts. The districts had sought tax increases after New Jersey cut school aid statewide by $475 million this year and $820 million for next year. Here are some of the ways school districts are coping.

• The West Deptford School District expects to save $475,000 by eliminating neighborhood schools for students in grades 1-4. In the fall all 1st graders will attend Oakview Elementary School, all 2nd graders will attend Red Bank Elementary School and all 3rd and 4th graders will attend Green-Fields Elementary School.
   
• The Franklin Township Public Schools, serving students in grades K-6, are considering consolidating with the Delsea Regional School District, which includes grades 7-12.
   
• The Lumberton Township Schools eliminated 17 jobs and its staff has given up $200,000 in compensation.
   
• Palmyra Area School District teachers and administrators have given up a 5 percent pay raise, saving $100,000 and averting nine layoffs.
   
• The Swedesboro-Woolrich School District and Kingsway Regional School District are considering sharing a superintendent.
   
• The Winslow Township School District will eliminate 40 teaching and 11 staff and support jobs, privatize custodial and maintenance services and slash $2.7 million in capital projects. But the Township Committee restored all but some $200,000 of a tax increase rejected by voters, averting the threatened closure of the 300-student Elementary School One.

The Background

Faced with an $11 billion state deficit, in February Gov. Christopher J. Christie cut current-year state school aid by $475 million and in March announced $820 million in cuts for the 2010-2011 school year. He called on teachers to accept a wage freeze and urged voters when they went to the polls April 20 to reject school budgets where teachers did not agree to a wage freeze.

In South Jersey districts where teachers accepted a wage freeze, voters nevertheless rejected school budgets in Mantua, Southampton and Florence, while narrowly passing the budget in Woodland. Statewide, voters accepted the budgets in 13 of 20 districts with wage freezes.

Leading up to the vote, Christie and the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA)  feuded. After a Bergen County teachers’ official publicly prayed for Christie’s death, the NJEA apologized. When a Monroe Township 3rd grade teacher sent home two questions asking whether parents voted in school budget elections and intended to do so this year, Christie accused teachers of using students as “drug mules” to convey voting information — and refused to apologize for it.

The Vote

Here is the district-by-district April 20 school budget vote in South Jersey.