Positions, purchases among $1.1M in cuts

Staff positions, district publications and school supplies are among the many items cut from the school budget to achieve the $1 million in reductions ordered by the East Brunswick Township Council.

The Board of Education approved a list of 28 cuts to the $134.4 million school budget for 2008-09, which was defeated by voters in the April 15 school election. The action came after the council ordered a reduction that will bring the school tax rate increase from 6.9 cents per $100 of assessed valuation to 1.9 cents. This shaved $75 off what would have been a $103 tax increase for properties assessed at $150,000.

"Making cuts in a school budget is not easy. We have spent many painful hours going through the budget to make the decisions" on which items to reduce, Superintendent of Schools Jo Ann Magistro said during the May 15 Board of Education meeting.

The board's task was made more difficult because it had to find an additional $100,000 in the budget to cover the cost of bus routes that were recently deemed hazardous for schoolchildren to walk. As a result, the board had to find a total of $1.1 million to be cut from the budget.

While the council recommended a variety of cuts, including the elimination of several new teaching positions proposed for the expanded Hammarskjold Middle School, the board chose to cut other line items. Magistro said the board "made a commitment" to the voters who supported the Hammarskjold expansion that class sizes would be reduced, and that it would deliver on that pledge.

Among the more significant cuts the board made were the elimination of eight existing, full-time technology instructional aide positions, which will be replaced with four full-time technology support positions. Each elementary school currently has one technology aide, but in the future the positions will be shared, according to Patricia LaDuca, coordinator of community programs and relations.

"It was felt that we could more efficiently use four, doing some similar things, but they will each have two schools," LaDuca said, noting however that it remains to be determined exactly how the positions will be shared.

Some of the other staffing cuts included two proposed full-time language arts teachers; a full-time resource room teaching position; a full-time psychologist position; and one full-time custodian.

Several full-time positions were reduced to halftime, including a kindergarten teacher, a Latin position and a kindergarten instructional aide.

Stipends for clubs and activities districtwide were reduced, while lead teacher stipends at the elementary schools were eliminated, and sixth-period teaching stipends for regular and special education were reduced. The proposed expansion of the second-grade Study Island program was postponed; and classroom supply allocations and paper supplies were reduced.

Intramural sports will be consolidated; athletic equipment purchases was postponed; and travel budgets and legal fees reduced, along with postage and telephone budgets. The district will produce fewer printed issues of "Spotlight on Education," and the budget for the "Top Health" newsletter was eliminated altogether. The budget for the "Inform Student" database was also eliminated.

The school district will postpone the acquisition of new maintenance equipment, and will hold off on new security systemdesigns for three elementary schools. The board had budgeted to design new security systems at five schools, and will still fund the new designs for East Brunswick High School and Churchill Junior High School.

"It's not that those [three elementary] schools are unsafe," LaDuca said. "This funding was to get plans done for the security systems [to be updated] at those schools. It was felt that with the current fiscal climate, we wouldn't be able to implement the designs at all five schools the following year anyway."

The other budget cut was to the only field trip that the school district still funded, the sixth-grade trip to Fairview Lake Environmental Education Center YMCA, Newton.

"All the others had already gone to parent paid," LaDuca said. Parents will now be expected to pay $125 per student for the Fairview trip, and the district will pay for chaperones.

Regarding the cuts to the school district publications, LaDuca said officials plan to provide more information and interaction through the district's Web site.

Magistro said the job of finding cuts was complicated by issues such as collective bargaining agreements, as well as state and federal mandates.

"It would be a gross understatement to say that we have spent weeks laboring to determine how best to make these reductions," she said. "We are a people business, and are well aware of the value our staff brings to our students.No one likes tomake cuts that will hurt individuals."

The cuts that were ultimately chosen, Magistro said, will achieve the savings ordered

by the Township Council while enabling the school district to continue meeting

its obligation to the students.

"Of course, we are disappointed that the budget was defeated, and that it was defeated by only 31 votes," she said. "But the fact remains that it was defeated, the community has spoken, the Township Council has taken action, and we must now abide by that outcome."