{"id":11179,"date":"2017-06-21T16:05:05","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T20:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=11179"},"modified":"2017-06-21T16:05:19","modified_gmt":"2017-06-21T20:05:19","slug":"officials-brick-schools-could-face-staffing-program-cuts-if-state-aid-reduction-passes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2017\/06\/officials-brick-schools-could-face-staffing-program-cuts-if-state-aid-reduction-passes\/","title":{"rendered":"Officials: Brick Schools Could Face Staffing, Program Cuts if State Aid Reduction Passes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mayor<\/a>

Mayor John Ducey speaks on school funding, June 21, 2017. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Brick school district students could face larger class sizes, the elimination of programs and fewer teachers if a deal hatched by state Sen. President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto<\/a> is allowed to pass, a bipartisan group of elected officials said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Brick would see its state aid cut by $2.2 million and neighboring Toms River\u2019s aid would be cut to the tune of $3.3 million under the plan hatched by the two Democratic legislative leaders. Most of the officials from both towns who gathered at Toms River High School South on Wednesday called on Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, to veto the plan if aid is not restored.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur school board is standing in full opposition to this so-called fair funding plan,\u201d said Toms River Regional school board president Ben Giovine. \u201cWe call on our legislative leaders to work in a bipartisan fashion to find a formula that is fair to all of our diverse districts in our great state. Failing that, we would call on our governor to veto this plan outright.\u201d<\/p>\n

Northern Ocean County\u2019s legislators \u2013 state Sen. James Holzapfel and assemblymen David Wolfe and Greg McGuckin \u2013 were on hand and blasted the funding plan, saying it heavily moves money into Democratic districts and punishes Republican-leaning districts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, this was not a legislative plan,\u201d said Holzapfel. \u201cThis was a plan that was designed by two people \u2013 Senate President Sweeney and Speaker Prieto.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holzapfel said out of $140 million in new school spending statewide under the plan, $100 million in additional funds will be sent to Democratic districts, while districts such as Brick and Toms River will see cuts.<\/p>\n

Brick Mayor John Ducey, a Democrat, joined GOP elected officials in asking for the funding plan to either be modified to restore the aid or turned down completely.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking here about fairness,\u201d he said. \u201cWell here\u2019s what\u2019s not fair: it\u2019s not fair that Toms River and Brick got hit by Superstorm Sandy \u2026 it\u2019s not fair that a small group of people are paying more in taxes to make up for $341 million in ratables [lost during the storm]. That smaller group of people are now being punished under this \u2018fairness formula.'\u201d<\/p>\n

Ducey said Brick and Toms River residents have already faced storm cleanup costs, a tax base that has not recovered, and were punished with the state\u2019s gas tax increase last year since residents of the two towns are most likely to commute to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cFairness is every single community being treated the same,\u201d Ducey said, calling on Christie to veto the school funding portion of the budget if state aid is not restored.<\/p>\n

Students Will Suffer Most<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interim Brick Township schools superintendent Thomas Gialanella said the district\u2019s budget and tax rate has already been set for the \u00a02017-18 school year, and if the cuts go through, officials would be left with no choice but to reallocate funds and, potentially, cut staffing and programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the midst of hiring right now for our budget that was approved in March,\u201d said Gialanella. \u201cWe\u2019ve already planned and hired people for the programs \u2013 what can we do now?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWill this affect kids? Yes,\u201d he continued. \u201cThere will be cuts to programs we will not be able to sustain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be looking at staffing issues, larger class sizes and cutting programs,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is really beyond comprehension that you can start talking about those types of cuts days before the budget goes into affect.\u201d<\/p>\n

The budgetary school year begins July 1, the same day as the state\u2019s budgetary year.<\/p>\n

Gialanella, like his colleague Toms River Superintendent David Healy, also said athletic programs will come under review. Healy said \u201cpay to play\u201d fees could be an option. Gialanella said he\u2019d like to avoid that scenario.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when you go to those extremes, you start to lose support from your community,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to punish kids or parents for playing a sport or being in the band.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gialanella said neither he nor the Board of Education favors changing the tax rate, an option that to his knowledge is not available in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Board, in collaboration\u00a0with the Administration worked hard to keep our tax rate low, prepared a\u00a0budget that provides an excellent opportunity for our students, and makes\u00a0some much needed capital improvements,\u201d Board of Education President John Lamela said in a prepared statement. \u201d\u00a0Now in late June we are told\u00a0that we will lose almost $2.2 million dollars which will result in making\u00a0deep cuts. At this late date it is not only unfair but will hurt the students of\u00a0Brick Township.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brick school district students could face larger class sizes, the elimination of programs and fewer teachers if a deal hatched by state Sen. President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto is allowed to pass, a bipartisan group of elected officials said Wednesday. Brick would see its state aid cut by $2.2 million and neighboring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,13],"tags":[24,2951,2950],"class_list":["post-11179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-brick-schools","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-school-budget-cuts","tag-school-funding"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0691.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-2Uj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}