No Tax Levy Increase For Mendham Twp Schools

In a case of you can’t win for losing, the Mendham Township School District hammered out a zero tax levy increase for the third year in a row, but the average homeowner will be paying $28 more thanks to a loss of residential home value.

“Ratables decreased 5.5 million dollars,” said Superintendent Sal Constantino at Thursday's budget presentation. “So in the increase seen by the taxpayer is coming solely from the loss of residential ratables.”

The proposed 2013-14 budget has the same $13,895,226 tax levy of the past three school years.

This year’s budget will be calculated at a tax rate of $.7972 per $100 of assessment or $797 per $100,000. The ratable loss drops the average home value from $914,361 to $912,203.

The third year in a row with no levy increase was no small feat for new superintendent Constantino and new business administrator Thomas Kryger considering some of the challenges they faced.

“Fixed costs like state aid debt service, health insurance and utility costs have increased,” Constantino said. “Salaries and benefits represent 75 percent of the school budget. Add up salary, transportation and tuition and the fixed cost is 83.5 percent. The discretionary funds we have to spend on text books, capital improvements and everything else is 16.5 percent.”

Constantino said that the work of the board past and present allowed Mendham Township to be in the enviable position they are in.

“This has been a really wonderful process working with everyone here,” Constantino said. “I really enjoyed it.”

Mendham Township works on a zero based budget, which means in November the administration start the process by engaging all of the teachers and administrators and asking them to fill out a ledger of what they need in order to provide an environment for student success.

“It’s a zero based budget process,” Constantino said. “We don’t base it off of last year.”

Constantino said that the data is collected by administrators and analyzed as they go over the budget line by line.  Under the proposed budget, Mendham Township will continue capital improvement projects like roof repairs and wi fi installation and maintain the quality of programs students have been afforded over the years.

As long as voters support the budget.

As one of the only districts in the region that did not move their elections to November, Mendham Township voters will need to approve their budget. Districts that moved their elections will forgo budget referendum as long as the budgets fall within the state’s 2 percent cap. Voters will have a chance to approve the budget on April 16.

“When voters get into the ballot box they will see the same number at $13,895,226 that they have for the past three years,” Constantino said. “If the budget doesn’t pass we then have to sit down with the Township Committee and look for places to cut. But with only 16.5 percent in discretionary funds, we would be looking at increasing class sizes, cutting programs or putting of maintenance and improvement projects.”