Brick School Budget: 3.51 Percent Tax Rise, 14 Teacher Positions Cut

BRICK, NJ -- Warped flooring and cracked bleachers in a gym at Brick Township High School. Potholes that are 8 inches deep in the Lake Riviera Middle School parking lot. Maintenance vehicles that cannot be repaired. Curriculum updates. A significant increase in prescription medication costs.

Those were just a few of the items included Thursday evening in the presentation on the Brick Township School District's 2016-17 proposed budget of $149,999,323. A special meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 2, at 6:30 p.m. in the Technology Training Center in the school board's administration building at 101 Hendrickson Blvd., off Van Zile Road north/west of Route 70.

The proposed budget includes a tax levy of $103,511,385, a 3.51 percent increase over the 2015-16 budget, district Business Administrator James Edwards said. It equals $98 per year on a home assessed at the township average of $293,500. Because the proposed levy exceeds the state-mandated 2 percent cap, Edwards said the budget would apply $1,564,544 of its $5.6 million cap bank. Edwards said the cap bank is a result of the school budget being held to a zero percent increase in for the 2014-15 school year and just 0.9 percent for 2015-16.

The budget includes significant increases in capital spending ($540,032), substitute teachers ($799,866), equipment ($349,038), and transportation ($312,279). There's an added pressure in a 15 percent reduction in funding the district will receive under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, and a $517,270 increase in benefits costs driven by the increased cost of prescriptions.

The budget also reflects an increase of $2,750,754 for salary increases negotiated last year that were not offset as much as had been projected by concessions in health care, Edwards said.

There have been some reductions, including $484,352 in salary "breakage," which occurs when a higher-salaried employee retires or resigns and is replaced by someone at a much lower salary or not replaced at all; a decrease of $536,126 in costs for special education needs; and savings in a technology lease-purchase agreement and in purchased services for photocopying, internet and telephone needs, Edwards said.

Interim Superintendent Thomas Gialanella said the budget cuts 14.5 teaching positions, an aide, and an administrator's position. Because of retirements and resignations, the number of teachers who will be laid off is four, he said.

According to the state Department of Education, the Brick school district spends the 20th-lowest per-pupil among among 103 K-12 districts with 3500 students or more. It has the sixth-lowest number of total administrators (38 in 2015-16, which will become 37 next year); it is the second-lowest in the state in the amount it spends on operations and maintenance, but 79th out of 103 in the ratio of students to teachers, figures that Gialanella included in the budget presentation.

The proposed increase did not sit well with some.

"I'm very disappointed with a 3.51 percent increase," board member Karyn Cusanelli said. "The taxpayers are not a MAC machine."

She also expressed frustration that the numbers were not presented to the public for review ahead of the budget hearing, which interim Superintendent Thomas Gialanella and Edwards said was due to information being compiled up to the last minute.

"I understand time constraints," Cusanelli said. "I think the taxpayers deserve the respect of a detailed budget."

"I saw everything presented as a need," board member John Barton said. "I still feel there is more to be done but we are being bombarded by the amount of work. It's a tremendous undertaking, and we're doing it with baby steps."

The needs are many. A few of those presented included:

• New fire code-compliant doors for the Brick Memorial auditorium ($20,000)
• Roof repairs at Herbertsville Elementary School ($45,000)
• Paving at Brick Township High School ($280,000, to be paid out of capital reserve funds)
• Architectural work to design paving project for the Veterans Memorial schools complex ($30,000)
• Paving project at Lake Riviera Middle School ($320,000)
• Renovations at the East Gym at Brick High School ($174,382)
• F450 Dump Truck with plow ($39,000)
• F150 Pickup Trucks (two trucks, $45,000 total)
• Passenger van with wheelchair lift for special needs students ($69,000)
• Curriculum updates ($30,000)

Richard Caldes, who had served as interim superintendent from May 2015 until January in the wake of the arrest of Superintendent Walter Uszenski, presented the facilities needs and said in many cases, they had been put off for as long as the district could delay them.

The paving projects, in particular, are long overdue, he said. Concrete curbing that has been in place for 30 years or more is deteriorating and at Lake Riviera Middle School, there are potholes that are as much as 8 inches deep, he said: "I measured them."

The East Gym renovation at Brick High School will replace the bleachers that were installed when the gym was originally constructed as part of the middle school, sometime in the 1960s. (The western end of the building was the original Brick Township High School that was constructed in the late 1950s and opened in 1958. The two buildings were connected sometime later by hallways that surround a courtyard; that addition includes the school's library.)

Caldes said that renovation also will include sanding and refinishing the gym floor, removing a divider in the gym that has not worked in years and is not needed, as well as a thorough cleaning of the rafters. But the bleachers, which have cracked benches, are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and which no longer work properly when they are opened and closed, are critical, he said.

At Lake Riviera, the paving project will completely revamp the design of the parking lot -- which has been in place since the building opened sometime in the 1970s. Caldes said the new design will remove a concrete divider between the parking lot and the building that creates one driving lane in front of the school, and a diagonal parking area for buses closest to the north end of the parking lot will be created to improve student safety.

Curriculum updates are needed in English and mathematics at the high school level, and science and social studies at the middle school level, said Susan McNamara, director of testing. The budget also includes testing for dyslexia that is mandated by the state, she said.

The budget includes money for the textbooks account, which was not funded in 2015-16, though a textbook purchase in the amount of $475,000 was approved through a lease-purchase agreement last year.

Some of the issues raised in the budget have led to squabbling among board members.

Victoria Pakala questioned the textbooks account and why the budget for substitute teachers had to be doubled for 2016-17. The textbooks account was not funded in 2015-16, but a textbook purchase in the amount of $475,000 was approved through a lease-purchase agreement last year. For the substitutes, an additional $799,000 is included in the budget for the account for 2016-17.

Pakala's questions sparked a response from Sharon Cantillo, who said the previous board was faced with unwanted budget burdens as well.

"Bonus incentives were given to administrators (by a past board decision) for implementing Everyday Math," Cantillo said -- a curriculum the district later had to scrap, leading to an expenditure on an entirely new math curriculum. The district also implemented the Journeys literacy program through the lease-purchase, she said.

"To give the impression that we did not spend money on textbooks or on curriculum is unfair," she said.

Edwards said the primary issue on the cost of substitute teachers is absenteeism.

"Last year we were going in a direction that was going to reduce absenteeism," he said. "There were some ideas put on the table but they were never realized."

Cantillo said the third-party provider that has the substitute teacher contract promised the district a $700,000 savings.

"Unfortunately they didn't produce in the way that they promised," she said.

Board President John Lamela made it clear he's tired of the friction.

"Whatever was put out there didn't come to fruition; we need to fill it and move forward. -- we need to work as a team," he said. "We need to stop blaming everyone. I'm tired of the constant bickering. I'm done with the battling."

"Yes, there's an increase," he said later in the discussion. "That is nobody's fault up here. ... Like Mr. Gialanella said, I'm not going to cannibalize this district to save money. These are baby steps and that's what we're taking."