BOE: No Tax Levy Increase For 2012

The Barnegat Board of Education said today the school district’s 2012 budget would remain flat and deliver no new tax increases, despite an effective decrease in state aid due to required interest payments on development loans.

The state’s school aid plans for 2012, , show Barnegat will see an increase of $467,534 in state funds for its general budget. But the district also learned yesterday that it will owe $484,443 in debt service on loans from the New Jersey Schools Development Authority.

That’s a big decrease from the more than $800,000 it owed last year in interest on the SDA loans – the most of any district in the state, officials said – but it’s enough to more than cancel out the bump in aid.

Still, said board Administrator Dean Allison following a meeting with the board’s budget committee Thursday morning at district offices, the school budget plans are in good shape. 

“Everyone in this room expected lose at least half a million, maybe as much as a million,” Allison said. “We were expecting the worst. This is actually good news.”

The board’s budget, which will be available for review by the public in mid-March, will be even with last year’s, said board President Lisa Becker. Board members were able to balance the slight drop in state aid and contractual increases with more efficient scheduling, further cuts in transportation and energy savings, she said.

A slight remaining budget gap was filled with federal funds from the Education Jobs Fund, a President Obama initiative aimed at saving teachers’ jobs.

As a result, said Allison, “we will not be raising our property tax levy.”

Becker said she believed the district’s deep cuts last year put Barnegat in good standing with the state, which had designated the township’s schools as “over adequacy” in certain categories, including transportation and administration. 

Since making the tough decisions to scale back busing and cut employees, the district has been held up by the governor as an example of a school system that’s performing well despite lower costs, Becker said.

“They do see what we’ve done,” she said.

The debt service on the SDA “grants” remains a thorn in the side of the district, however.

 Over the last 10 years, the state aid funded major building projects, including the construction of the new high school. Officials had an understanding that Barnegat taxpayers would be on the hook for $22 million of that, said Allison.

But last year, without explanation from the SDA, Barnegat was saddled with $822,000 in debt service fees for what had been believed to be the grant portion of the projects, he said, and that was on top of a major cut in state aid. 

“We were not singled out,” Allison said. “All districts in the state were hit.”

But because Barnegat had received so much construction aid in recent years, “we were number one, unfortunately,” said Superintendent Jason Bing.