Point Beach School Budget Raises Tax, Keeps Programs
By Naomi Mueller, Asbury Park Press, N.J.
Mar. 30–POINT PLEASANT BEACH — The $12,566,495 budget adopted by the Board of Education maintains existing staff and teachers in the programs while containing costs, but it would raise the school property tax rate by 11.35 cents, school officials said.
“Our primary goal (with this budget) is to maintain the quality of our educational program,” said Schools Superintendent John Ravally. “We want to maintain our staff, maintain our class sizes and maintain the programs that produce good class scores.”
In addition to maintaining existing programs, Ravally said the district wants to contain costs. Ravally said the proposed budget does that despite increasing the tax rate by 11.35 cents, to $1.44 per $100 assessed property value.
After all, he said, nearly two-thirds of that tax increase is the result of debt service that will be paid for improvements approved by voters on the G. Harold Antrim School.
As it traditionally is here, the largest revenue source for the district will be taxes paid by the borough’s property owners. This year, the board is asking voters to approve a $8,689,532 tax levy, up $366,285.
The budget adopted by the school board is $1,069,508, reflecting a 9.3 percent increase.
The district plans to use $178,068 from its surplus to balance the budget.
School officials said some of the largest increases in the budget come from raises for teachers and teachers’ aides, money for maintaining the district’s buildings and employee benefits.
If approved by voters April 18, the school tax rate will increase by 11.35 cents to $1.44 per $100 assessed property value. That means a property owner with a home assessed at $160,000, the borough’s average, will pay $2,304 in school taxes next year, or $181.60 more than they paid this year.
School officials Wednesday said they believe it is important that property owners recognize that more than half of the 11.35-cent increase — or more than 7 of those cents — is the result of voters’ approval of plans to improve spending at the G. Harold Antrim School.
School Business Administrator Brian Savage said taxpayers began paying for the $8.9 million being spent to make improvements to the high school several years ago, but this is the first year that the $8.9 million debt for the improvements to the elementary school will be paid. That project was approved by voters last year. Next year, the district will pay $970,614 in debt service, a $480,578 increase.
The board has also included money in its budget for raises for teachers, teachers’ aides and most custodians and secretaries. Because the board and the Point Pleasant Beach Education Association, which represents those employees, are currently in contract negotiations, school officials would not disclose the amount budgeted for those raises. The association’s contract expires June 30.
To generate additional money, the board earlier this month agreed to increase the amount it charges students who attend its schools from other districts by 5 percent. Next year, those students will pay tuition of $6,722 each.
Ravally said the district plans to expand some existing programs, such as the Jump Start program, in which teachers at the high school with master’s degrees teach college-level courses for college credit. In addition, Ravally said the district plans to revamp its kindergarten-through-fifth-grade math curriculum and to formalize its gifted program in its younger grades.
Voters have failed to approve the proposed tax levy for two consecutive years. The levy passed for 17 years before that.
BY THE NUMBERS
Some increases in the school board’s proposed 2006-07 budget:
–Regular education, including teacher and teacher aide salaries, substitute teachers, textbooks and teaching supplies — $3,884,560, up 3.1 percent.
–Special education, including self-contained classrooms, home instructional teachers and aids and textbooks — $887,425, up 1.75 percent.
–Operation and maintainence of the district facilities, including custodian salaries and utility costs — $1,173,413, up 8.5 percent.
–Bilingual education, including textbooks, teaching supplies and materials for the English Speakers of Other Languages program — $46,084, up 7.9 percent.
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