Montclair Schools May See Reduction In Staff, Superintendent Says

MONTCLAIR, NJ — Rising personnel and health insurance costs, along with several other factors, may cause a “reduction in staff” in the Montclair Public School District, according to administrators.

On Friday, Interim Superintendent Nathan Parker offered an update on the tentative 2020-21 budget (read the full message).

The district is facing a potential $7.5 million budget shortfall, Montclair Local reported last week.

The Montclair Board of Education will hold a special meeting on the adoption of the preliminary 2020-2021 budget on Tuesday, March 3 at 7:30 p.m. in the George Inness Annex Atrium, 141 Park Street.

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BUDGET UPDATE: NATHAN PARKER

“We began the preparation for next year’s budget in November 2019. Our process has been ongoing since that time and on March 3, 2020 at 7:30 p.m., the Board of Education will approve our tentative 2020-21 budget. After board approval, the budget will go to the Essex County Superintendent for further review and approval. The next steps in the process include Board of School Estimate meetings which are tentatively set for March and April.

“I thank the administrative staff at the building and district levels for their hard work in developing the budget and helping us to balance the budget within the mandated 2 percent tax increase. Our leadership focus has been to address some of the long-term academic issues in order to design learning that is more engaging, rigorous and aligned with state standards. In addition, we are introducing several new strategies to create a path to eliminate the opportunity gap.

“To this end we had four Board of Education presentations on various sections of the budget. In addition, we met three times with representative community groups to discuss each phase of the budget development. Costs for personnel and health insurance increased significantly. This, along with low enrollment in some classes, attrition, and the need to realign assignments, may cause a reduction in staff.”

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