$174 Million School Budget OK'd, But Officials Warn of Tighter Times

Cherry Hill’s $174 million school budget quietly passed final muster with a unanimous vote Thursday night, but school officials warned the budget could get much tighter in coming years.

With three people in the audience and zero public participation, Jim Devereaux, the district’s assistant superintendent for business, highlighted the major points of this year’s budget—a possible tax decrease for some homeowners and slow growth in spending overall—but threw a caution flag on two pieces.

With $6.6 million coming over in fund balance, Devereaux told board members the days of having a large surplus are likely over.

About $1.7 million of that surplus is coming from 30 different capital projects that are getting closed out this year, Devereaux said, with no chance of getting that money in future budgets.

“This is a one-time thing,” he said. “Many of these projects have been around for a very long time.”

And, as in years past, the district is carrying over a sizeable chunk from the operations budget—$4.8 million, an amount Devereaux characterized as high.

“That is unsustainable for the long term,” he said, especially given it doesn’t appear the district will be so flush with unspent cash at the end of this school year.

“While it is better than we thought it was going to be, it is nonetheless lower than it has been in past years,” Devereaux said. “We’re clearly in a tightening trend.”

State aid, which has yet to get back to where it was in the 2008-2009 school year, is the other major factor, Devereaux said. —the same as this school year—but that’s only about 80 percent of what the district got five years ago.

“That is an indication of how times have changed, when you consider that we were relieved to learn this year it was just flat,” he said.

While state aid has recovered somewhat from the low of three years ago, Devereaux pointed out that, under the current formula, the district should be getting around $18 million per year from the state, and a planned five-year phase-in for increases in aid never materialized.

“We got the one-year phase-in, and that was it,” he said.

With less of a surplus likely and state aid a question mark, board member Elliot Roth, who chairs the business and finance committee, said next year’s planning essentially has to start with a $2 million hole and the possibility of cuts.

But there may be solutions on the revenue side of the budget that could help balance that long term, Superintendent Maureen Reusche said.

“It would start small…that could build so that we could look at doing some things differently, and not be always going to what teaching positions can we cut or what can we eliminate from the budget,” she said.

There are already some examples of how the district’s doing things different, Resuche said, including some staffing shifts—a position is getting eliminated in the business office under the new budget, but thanks to retirements and personnel shifts, no one’s losing a job as a result. That mindset is going beyond just central administration, she said.

“I have asked administrators in all offices to look at how those offices are staffed,” Reusche said.

And far from staff cuts elsewhere, the budget actually manages to add 12.2 positions to the 2013-2014 school year—three special education teachers, eight special education assistants, a bilingual teacher, a grant-funded human resources recruiter and a 0.2 math teacher.

School board President Kathy Judge said she was thankful the administration and board were able to stay ahead in the process and not react as state aid and other funding news came through.

“I personally was able to breathe a little easier,” she said. “When this process began, we weren’t sure how ugly it was going to be.”

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