Council to Make Decision on Budget May 17

The defeated 2011-12 proposed Galloway school budget is now in the hands of the Galloway Township Council, and a decision on how to proceed will come during a special meeting next Tuesday, May 17 at 5:30 p.m. at the municipal complex, Mayor Keith Hartman said Tuesday night during the council’s regular meeting.

There are two things that could happen: the council can decide to pass the budget as presented; or it can choose to cut it to an amount the council deems appropriate. The council only determines the amount; it’s up to the school board to decide what gets cut to comply with that amount.

The $53,729,135 budget called for a tax levy of $28,338,076. It translated into eight-tenths of a cent tax increase, or $16 a year on a home assessed at $200,000. After absentee ballots were counted, the difference proved to be 61 votes.

“I don’t see a problem with the budget,” Councilman Dennis Kleiner said. “The only excess I saw was the replacing of carpet tiles. … I’m content with the budget. It’s good for the students.”

“The people did vote it down,” Deputy Mayor Don Purdy said. “It was a close vote. I urge everyone to look at the numbers and ask as many questions as they can.”

A major issue with the budget concerns courtesy busing, which was discontinued last year when the proposed budget for 2010-11 was defeated. This meant that anyone who lived within a mile and a half of the school they were attending had to walk. This was a problem with Arthur Rann School specifically, as that school is located right on a major road.

Busing for Arthur Rann only would be returned if the budget is passed as is by the township. Kleiner expressed concern that the busing would be eliminated if cuts had to be made.

Purdy expressed concern for those that are unemployed.

“There are people in Galloway who are unemployed, who can’t pay for heating in their home, who can’t feed their family,” Purdy said. “At the end of the day, we’re going to have to raise taxes. … We need to be more conscientious of how we spend taxpayers’ money. I have three kids in the school system. I came through the school system. It’s a great education, but we have a lot of residents who are not working.”

His sentiments were echoed by , who also wished to reiterate that

“If everything else stayed the same, that would be one thing,” Jezycki said. “But oil is up, gas is up, electricity is up, food is up. All these things combined create an issue for senior citizens. Don’t think senior citizens are against the school system. It’s a combination of everything, and everything else stayed the same, the budget would’ve passed.

“Someone paid for my children to go through the school system, and I don’t mind paying for other children to go through it.”

Although she voted, she did say a lot of people choose not to vote because they can go out and vote against the budget, only to have council pass it as proposed with no changes.

Purdy cited one problem: the public doesn’t turn out for the meetings, so the school board gets no feedback from the public before presenting a budget.

“I love when people come out to the council meetings because we know what they’re thinking and we know what we have to do, what we have to improve on,” Purdy said. “If no one goes to the Board of Education meetings, the board doesn’t get any feedback. … They think everyone thinks what they’re doing is OK, and then when the budget gets voted down, they say, why didn’t anyone come to us?”

Members of the school board were in attendance at Tuesday night’s meeting.

“We spent just as much time on our budget as (council does),” newly elected Board President Ernest Huggard said. “We’ve had our budget lowered by over $2 million, and we had a moderate tax increase. Our carpets are old, but we have children in the building we need to be concerned about. Courtesy busing should be considered safety busing because a lot of Galloway Township doesn’t have sidewalks.”

He also cited the need to restore the school’s sports programs, as did Superintendent Annette Giaquinto.

“We’ve done research to show the correlation between participation in after-school activities and attendance,” Giaquinto said.

She also cited the increase in need for free and reduced lunches from 20 percent when she started to 47 percent, and the need to fill more than 60 jobs that were previously cut in the school district.

It was clear this would be a tough decision for council, as members saw both sides of the issue.

“I can’t remember the last time the budget was defeated two years in a row,” Councilman Tony Coppola said. “That sends a message that people want accountability.

“I’m frustrated by the lack of participation from the public.  … I have two children in the school system. That’s why I located my family here, because of the schools, and I don’t want to see that diminished.” 

“I’m not excited that it falls in our lap now,” Purdy said.