Good Government should be transparent....

I attended the meeting of the Colts Neck School board last night regarding the possible closing of one of the schools and the consolidation of those students into the two remaining facilities with the possibility of leasing the third building to a private all girls catholic school.

The board was unable to present basic numbers or model that would enable the taxpayers in the community to make an informed decision. In essence, we are being told that enrollment is down and that we would “save” a million dollars by consolidating the schools, but no financial information was available for our review. In addition, we were told that we ran a surplus in the budget a few years back which was taken unilaterally by the state to fund programs out of district.

This is what was presented last night by the board:

a) The board hired an architectural firm to present options about consolidating the three schools into two. They also hired a firm to perform a demographic study to provide validation on the possible number of potential students that would be entering the school district for the next five years - but the results might take eight weeks or more to come in.

b) The board met with Trinity Hall four times in the past few months to discuss the possibility of leasing this space from the township.

c) The board claims that the deadline is coming up rapidly to make the decision for the 2015 school year - six to eight weeks from now.

d) The board claims that to “keep the lights on” at the existing school costs 125k per year and the total save would be in the 1.2 Million dollar range. The board claims that class sizes will be kept the same and they will just consolidate the students together.

e) The board mentioned that the potential tax savings would be in the $600 dollar range per household - but we might not see any of that money back because of the potential costs to retrofit the other schools to accommodate the influx of students, the costs associated with the board leasing the building, managing the building and escalating benefits costs for the existing employees.

f) The school site will go to “public bid” for leasing if that is what they decide is the best course of action. The board president claims that since the site is specifically zoned as a school, it might not lease out on the market as well as an office building.

General comments to the above:

a) How is it that the board was unable to present a financial model with basic assumptions regarding the consolidation, yet hired firms to look into consolidating the physical spaces and performing a demography to justify the consolidation? They also spoke to a real estate management company about leasing the property.

b) If you don’t have a financial model that makes sense to share with the taxpayers, why would you be meeting with a single school about their specific needs four times? When asked to provide the meeting notes from those meetings to the taxpayers, they refused.

c) You don’t have a financial model to rationalize the consolidation - yet we are on a deadline to make this happen in the next six to eight weeks? We won’t even have the demographical report which would justify doing anything. Have they looked at the real estate inventory in Colts Neck? What happens if these properties are sold to families that have school age children?

d) The general numbers don’t make sense. If we are just moving existing students and keeping the class sizes the same - how does moving them from three facilities into two save 1 Million in labor costs? Does that mean that between the janitors and the principal of the school being consolidated - they are making 1 million dollars? Does it mean that we currently have teachers in the under-utilized school today who are just standing around without classes to teach? You can’t move students, keep the class sizes the same and somehow cut 1 million from labor costs.

e) Instead of running the school board at a surplus which can be taken by the state at any time, they should run their budgets with the goal of using any additional money to improve the quality of education for the children in the district. They might be able to hire back the Spanish teacher they let go or develop a STEM program - or provide additional technology to improve student performance. It makes no sense to allow our local tax dollars earmarked for the education of our children to be placed into surplus which can be grabbed by the state and not benefit the children in our town. We already pay NJ state taxes that go towards the general education of children in our state, the local tax dollars should stay local. If that means we have smaller classes and provide cutting edge robotics labs, 3D printers and other educational programs that better educate our children - I’m all for it.

f) If the board is meeting with a single potential school to lease the property - what is the difference if it goes up for public bid? We will have exactly ONE firm bidding on the property. I also don’t agree with the assertion made by the board about how the property is worth less than a general use building. If a school wants to lease a property - it has to be zoned as a school. That means that the potential market might be smaller, but it does not mean that the school board has less leverage in pricing - it has more. As we can only lease to a school and the school can only lease a property zoned as a school - Trinity Hall has to find another site in our area that is correctly zoned. I understand that there are schools in Asbury which would meet this criteria and I would love to see them use a facility that is actually empty and doesn’t require the detrimental consolidation of our children.

In conclusion, the board could put this issue up for referendum which would allow the taxpayers of Colts Neck to determine the course of action. The deadline for the current period to submit this to referendum was the day before the board meeting. The next one would be in first quarter of 2015 - past their self imposed “deadline” to make a decision. It is apparent to me that the decision has been already made and that the meeting was window dressing. The board asserted that it would be better for them to make the decision than leave it to the taxpayers to make the decision - but I don’t agree with that assertion. The people of Colts Neck should be able to have a greater say in how their tax dollars are being used for the education of their children. This is not a regular business transaction that should be made by a small group, this is an extraordinary transaction which has an immediate impact. When the President of the Board has his own children in private school, one must question his motivations.

The board needs to change their artificial timetable and put the decision up for referendum in 2015. Good government should have at its base the good of the people being governed. Good government should allow its citizens access to the data that is being used to make the decision and it should be transparent. Having four meetings with the single school which might lease the property and one meeting with the taxpayers - one must question the level of transparency being provided by the board when they are unwilling to release the meeting notes from these meetings.

Thanks,

Keith Caneiro