{"id":1650,"date":"2018-02-13T02:35:40","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T07:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/?p=1650"},"modified":"2018-02-13T02:35:40","modified_gmt":"2018-02-13T07:35:40","slug":"toms-river-school-referendum-plan-could-top-100m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2018\/02\/toms-river-school-referendum-plan-could-top-100m\/","title":{"rendered":"Toms River School Referendum Plan Could Top $100M"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Superintendent

Superintendent David Healy speaks on school funding, June 21, 2017. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

A large-scale, district-wide facilities improvement project could present voters with an important question come later this year: whether to borrow tens of millions of dollars \u2013 if not more \u00a0\u2013 to fund the plan.<\/p>\n

Toms River Regional schools superintendent said at a series of meeting last week that the district would be looking to undertake a slew of projects that are still being designed and prioritized. Examples include new handicap-accessible playgrounds, replacing carpet with tile around the district for health and cleanliness, turf fields for sporting facilities. Items to be funded would also likely include the repair of parking lots and driveways, HVAC unit replacements across the district, door and window replacements, plus items such as science labs and other education-centric projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have carpet that, in some cases, has been here since the \u201870s,\u201d Healy said, explaining the need for one aspect of the project. \u201cWe\u2019re replacing it with tile, which really helps with dust, mold, all kinds of issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Healy said he understands that some residents question spending significant amounts of money on athletics, but the turf field replacement \u201cis not optional.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t, we won\u2019t be able to have athletic programs and the town won\u2019t be able to have its rec programs,\u201d he said, with the explanation that some leagues are now requiring a turf surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the culmination of years of work and a lot of thought,\u201d he said, of the project.<\/p>\n

On top of taxpayers\u2019 minds will be the cost of the project. New Jersey\u2019s beleaguered property taxpayers \u2013 especially in Ocean County \u2013 have often rejected referendums, with political observers inferring that residents are often quick to reject such measures because they are one of the few opportunities citizens have to directly vote on their tax bills.<\/p>\n

But the project may be less of a burden than some might expect.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are pretty frightening numbers when you start talking about $100 million in work,\u201d said Business Administrator Bill Doering. \u201cIt raises some eyebrows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doering said he expects the state may contribute up to 40 percent of the funding if the referendum receives voters approval. For a hypothetical $100 million referendum with the state covering 30 percent (as a conservative estimate), the average tax increase would be about $96 per year for 20 years, the length of the bonds that would be utilized for the funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying that\u2019s not a frightening number, I just want everyone to have an idea of the numbers and how they translate for our district,\u201d Doering said.<\/p>\n

The district is also expecting to pay off old bonds, decreasing the district\u2019s overall debt service by $4.7 million per year through 2025.<\/p>\n

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

A large-scale, district-wide facilities improvement project could present voters with an important question come later this year: whether to borrow tens of millions of dollars \u2013 if not more \u00a0\u2013 to fund the plan. Toms River Regional schools superintendent said at a series of meeting last week that the district would be looking to undertake […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[538,11],"class_list":["post-1650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-toms-river-schools","tag-school-referendum","tag-toms-river-nj-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_8590-e1511314462620.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}