{"id":13160,"date":"2018-08-01T03:52:55","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T07:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=13160"},"modified":"2018-08-01T03:53:47","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T07:53:47","slug":"brick-boe-eliminates-school-positions-guarantee-tax-hikes-for-next-seven-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2018\/08\/brick-boe-eliminates-school-positions-guarantee-tax-hikes-for-next-seven-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick BOE Eliminates Jobs, Guarantees Tax Hikes for Next Seven Years"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The Brick Township Board of Education meets July 31, 2018. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Brick school district was able to stave off potential layoffs in the wake of a $1.9 million state funding cut, but officials warned the state will require Brick to raise school taxes to the maximum amount allowed by law each year for the next seven \u2013 and that \u201cdraconian\u201d cuts to services are on the way.<\/p>\n

The Board of Education on Tuesday night eliminated several supervisory and teaching positions, but Board President Stephanie Wohlrab said the positions were open and not yet filled. Another 44 positions had already been eliminated<\/a> this year prior to the funding cut, primarily by attrition.<\/p>\n

The future, frankly stated by district officials, appears bleak. Business Administrator James Edwards told a room filled with concerned taxpayers and parents that the district will be required by the state to raise taxes to the maximum 2 percent cap limit every year for the next seven. The cap limit is above and beyond increases to health and pension benefit payments and other exceptions under the law. The district will also have to look at \u201cdraconian\u201d cuts to services, Edwards said, since even at the maximum rate of annual tax increases, the Brick district will not be paying enough local tax dollars into its school system under the state\u2019s formula.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what we\u2019re going to be looking at a lot of different things we need to consider, and the most important thing is that the administration \u2026 and everyone who is a part of this process is doing what is in the best interests of the children,\u201d said Wohlrab.<\/p>\n

The district will shed several teachers and supervisors plus remove $1,348,276 from the school system\u2019s surplus account to balance the budget. The positions being eliminated include a humanities and science supervisor, one high school teacher, two resource room teachers, one bilingual education teacher and two elementary school teachers.<\/p>\n

Edwards said the district will make a special request to the state education commissioner, much like it did last year when cuts were proposed, for emergency funding in order to meet the constitutional requirement of a \u201cthorough and efficient\u201d education for the township\u2019s children. Last year, the district convinced the state that Brick\u2019s tax ratable base was still reduced by more than $300 million due to Superstorm Sandy, leading the state to restore some funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think you\u2019re going to get more money from Sandy relief, you have a problem,\u201d said resident Vic Fanelli.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything the district did last year for that final appeal would be done again this year,\u201d said Superintendent Gerard Dalton, who added he has been in contact with colleagues in Toms River, which is suffering a similar funding cut.<\/p>\n

The state, Edwards said, continues to insist that Brick is among the wealthier towns in the state, using a formula that is based half on the income of residents and half on the value of property. As the municipality with the most waterfront property in New Jersey as well as acres upon acres of highway commercial frontage, Brick is considered by the state to be a valuable community that can afford a $22 million tax hike, Edwards said, adding that he disagrees with Trenton\u2019s assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to get to the state level and find out how this is fair to Brick taxpayers to say that this is a wealthy district,\u201d said Edwards. \u201cHow is it that Princeton, under this formula, is getting $4 million more in state aid?\u201d<\/p>\n

Edwards said that this year will likely be the easiest for which to budget. The progressively-higher loss of state aid over the next seven years will not be enough to cover the district\u2019s expenses even with the required tax increases.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to have expenditure cuts,\u201d Edwards confidently stated. \u201cAnd in my opinion they are going to be draconian cuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The district will have to look at \u201cbig ticket items,\u201d he said, in response to a question by former board member Larry Reid as to whether so-called \u201ccourtesy busing\u201d could be curtailed. Such busing is provided to children who live outside the mileage limit from their school where transportation is required by law.<\/p>\n

Jerry DiCicco, a Herbertsville resident, opined that the cuts may be politically motivated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is classic payback,\u201d he said. \u201cMurphy knows he got his clock cleaned here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy signed the funding realignment bill, pushed by Senate President Steve Sweeney, into law after initially not including it in his annual budget proposal. Murphy jokingly acknowledged his loss in Brick when swearing in Mayor John Ducey, a fellow Democrat, to his second term Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

There are no solid plans as to how the district will plan for the long-term cuts, which will culminate in a $22 million reduction in funding every school year after the gradual decreases. Some residents had suggestions, however.<\/p>\n

Former board member Karyn Cusanelli said if there are future staffing cuts, a reduction in administrators should be considered before teaching staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cSix teaching positions really equate to two administrative positions,\u201d said Cusanelli. \u201cI\u2019m concerned about the impact on the students. It\u2019s disappointing to me, as someone who\u2019s pro-teacher, that twice now teachers and [paraprofessionals] have been cut.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reid, who chaired the board\u2019s finance committee during his term, called for a detailed audit of all the district\u2019s nearly 800 line item accounts in its budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody has to scrutinize those 800 accounts, because there are a lot of wild numbers in those accounts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Wohlrab said she plans on working with state officials and other districts to try to reverse course on the de-funding measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that it\u2019s dangerous to come after people\u2019s kids,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd Brick is a strong community of a lot of people who have been here a long time. We\u2019re going to do the best we can to turn this around to the best of our abilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Brick school district was able to stave off potential layoffs in the wake of a $1.9 million state funding cut, but officials warned the state will require Brick to raise school taxes to the maximum amount allowed by law each year for the next seven \u2013 and that \u201cdraconian\u201d cuts to services are on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13161,"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":[13],"tags":[3115,24,921,3412,2118],"class_list":["post-13160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-schools","tag-2018-19-school-budget","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-property-taxes","tag-school-funding-cut","tag-tax-increase"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/brick_nj_board_edu.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-3qg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13160","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=13160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}