Decision Over Defeated Central Regional Budget Could Come Tonight

One more time.

Officials from all five of the Central Regional school district's sending towns will sit down again tonight to see if they can come to an agreement on how much to cut from the .

They were far from coming to a resolution at the earlier this month.

Central Regional has five sending towns - Berkeley Township, Island Heights, Ocean Gate, Seaside Heights and Seaside Park. Officials from all but Seaside Park agreed at the meeting not to cut anything from the defeated budget. Seaside Park officials started with $3 million in cuts, then came down to $1.5 million.

Although voters in Island Heights, Seaside Heights and Ocean Gate approved the $27,489,152 tax levy portion of the Central Regional $33,252,531 budget on April 27, it went down in Berkeley Township and Seaside Park. The total vote was 2,485 to 2,379 - a difference of 106 votes.

Central Regional schools Business Administrator Kevin O'Shea and Central Regional Board of Education members Robert Ray, Robert Everett and Tracy Mianulli met with Seaside Park last week to review the budget and answer questions, Amato said.

"I have had a few conversations with the (Seaside Park) Town Administrator Bob Martucci to seek common ground," Amato said. "I was advised by Mr. Martucci Seaside Park hired a consultant - a former school superintendent and business administrator - to review the budget and come up with recommendations. I'm hopeful we will be able to have a conversation dealing with the defeated budget issue only. I am cautiously optimistic we will be able to come to an agreement that will not affect the students."

The budget resolution is complicated by the ongoing litigation between the two school districts and the Township Council over just where Seaside Park students should attend school. Nine Seaside Park students have been attending Toms River Regional Schools free of charge, under an agreement arranged by former Toms River Regional schools superintendent Michael J. Ritacco.

But a new Board of Education earlier this month . From now on, tuition for Seaside Park students to attend Toms River Schools could top $10,000 for the upcoming school year.

Tonight's meeting gets under way at 6:00 p.m. in the presentation room at Central Regional High School. Teachers and students packed the previous meeting earlier this month.