Hopatcong School Budget Proposal Would Raise Taxes About $109

School taxes would raise about $109 for an owner of an average  borough home under Hopatcong's proposed $35 million school budget.

The Board of Education presented and adopted the 2011-2012 budget proposal—nearly $1 million more than last year's—in the high school's auditorium Monday night to a sparse crowd. The board approved a preliminary version of the budget earlier in March.

The district is proposing a tax rate of about $1.09 per $100 of assessed valuation, up from this year's $1.07. For a home assessed at the borough average of $315,000, that amounts of a tax payment of approximately $3,400 per year. That figure does not include taxes levied by the borough or Sussex County.

The budget now heads to voters, who can approve or reject it April 27. If it fails at the polls, it goes to the borough council for potential cuts. Hopatcong residents haven't passed proposed school budget in seven years.

Maranzano said the district would be forced to make cuts if the budget doesn't pass, and likened New Jersey's public schools to a cancer patient.

"You've got this patient that has cancer, you want to operate with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer," he said. "And you want to do the exact things that you can do to mitigate the disease so that patient continues to improve and hopefully heals. We have cut back so far in Hopatcong schools, what I'm afraid of is, over time, the deeper cuts we have in personnel … will start to affect the patient, start to affect our children. So that's what our board is concerned about."

Maranzano blamed rising expenses for the bulk of the increase of the proposed tax levy, which would rise about $715,000 from last year to $22.7 million. Maranzano said he expected gas prices to double. Business Administrator Theresa Sierchio said health insurance could rise 20 to 28 percent, but that the board was also looking at options reduce benefits in contract negotiations with teachers and other staff.

Sierchio said the proposed budget also includes $155,000 for the 83 students Hopatcong expects to send to Sussex Tech, which will begin charging districts $1,900 tuition per student. In 2010-11 and prior years, Sussex Tech didn't charge districts tuition; they only paid for transportation.

"We have no way around that," Lundin said. "They sent us a bill. We have to pay it."

Maranazno said Sussex Tech initially planned to charge $2,300 per student.

"We really wanted them to come down further," he said. "But we were very pleased they made the decision to reduce the tuition."

Hopatcong will receive about $340,000 more state aid in 2011-2012 than it did in the previous budget. In 2010-11, the district took a $1.7 million state aid cut from 2009-2010, which led to eliminating 24.5 teaching position, freshman sports, field hockey, tennis, golf, the marching band and several other programs.

"That does help," Maranzano said of the increased state aid.