Bridgewater-Raritan School Budget To Increase 4.34%

BRIDGEWATER, NJ — Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District held a presentation of the 2018-2019 school budget on Monday night at the John F. Kennedy Primary School in Raritan.

Superintendent Russell Lazovick presented residents with the proposed budget that includes a total of a 4.34 percent increase, which equates to a $53.26 increase for the Bridgewater residents with a home assessed at $100,000. In Raritan the increase is $31.59 per home assessed at $100,000.

The average assessed home in Bridgewater is $460,000, according to realtor.com. This means the increase would be roughly $240. Whereas the average assessed home in Raritan is $355,000, according to realtor.com. Meaning the increase would be roughly $110.

Lazovick attributed the increase to a number of things including, staff salaries and benefits and creating a larger allocation for facility funding. The approximately $726,000 for facilities will be used to help maintain the buildings in the district and also create a cushion in case an emergency repair needs to be made.

Since the staff funding takes up more than 75 percent of the budget, Lazovick noted the district will be eliminating 36 positions — 20 certificated staff and 15.5 support staff — to keep the budget increase low.

Lazovick noted that the positions being eliminated are not necessarily from layoffs, but are a combination of retirements or programs being eliminated due to lack of student interest. He also added that the staff elimination was spread out evenly among the district to not impact one particular school in a negative way.

As far as facility funding, Lazovick said about $2.7 million will used to upgrade the fire alarms at the high school, Milltown, Bradley Gardens and Hillside schools. Additionally, the high school gym floor will be replaced and paving work will be done at Bradley Gardens, Adamsville and Van Holten schools.

Money will also be used to help improve curriculum and update current technology.

One parent asked during the question portion about the middle school autism program being eliminated. The district created an age-specific autism program for middle school students for the 2017-18 school year, however, the cost to run the program was too high, according to Lazovick.

As a result, the district will revert back to using the prior autism program. Which means, autistic students graduating from intermediate school will go directly to the high school where they will be in joined in the high school's autism program. There will be no age-specific middle school autism program, but the students will still be able to be involved in the high school autism program.

The second public evening session for the school budget presentation will be held on Wednesday, April 18 at Bridgewater-Raritan Middle School, 128 Merriwood Road, Bridgewater at 6:30 p.m.

The public will have a chance to voice their opinion on the budget during the Board of Education's meeting on April 24 at 7:30 p.m. The meeting will be held in the Conference Room of the Harmon V. Wade Administration Building, 836 Newmans Lane in Bridgewater where the board will finalize a vote on the budget.

Watch Monday's budget presentation below recorded by Patch:

(Image via Shutterstock, Video by Alexis Tarrazi, Patch Staff)

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