Toms River Schools Seek Help As $7.4M Sandy Grant Nears End

TOMS RIVER, NJ -- Three-and-a-half years after Superstorm Sandy ripped apart homes and businesses up and down the Jersey Shore, the rebuilding effort is not nearly complete.

A drive through Ortley Beach is all that’s needed to see it -- homes that have been lifted or are in the process coexist with ones that still remain in ruins. And it is because so many homes still haven’t been restored or rebuild that the Toms River Regional School District is looking ahead to the 2016-17 school year with deep concern about how it will fill a $6 million budget gap caused by ratables that still have not returned to the tax rolls.

“Toms River was impacted the most of any community (by Sandy),” David Healy, the Toms River superintendent, said recently. The township lost $2.25 billion in ratables, according to state figures, and while some of that has been replaced, “the recovery is not happening as fast as it should in terms of (the township) being whole or partially restored.”

For the last three years, the district has received aid through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program, to help offset the impact of the lost ratables. In 2013-14 the district received $12 million in aid through the program, $9 million in 2014-15 and the 2015-16 budget includes $7.4 million, Healy said.

That grant, however, is going away, and Healy said that without something to fill the gap, the district is going to be in a very bad position.

“We’re in trouble,” Healy said. “Just to maintain the status quo -- not adding any additional projects, not including any increase in health care -- we are looking at a $6 million shortfall.” That $6 million also doesn’t take into account ongoing negotiations with the district’s teachers for a new contract, he said.

Critics are quick to jump on the district and say it needs to simply make cuts, particularly at the administrative level, but Healy said the issue is not overspending by the district.

Toms River spent the second-least per pupil among 103 districts that have 3,500 or more students, and its administrative costs per pupil were the seventh lowest of districts in that category in 2013-14, according to data from the state Department of Education.

“We are $41 million under adequacy,” Healy said. Adequacy is a measure by the state Department of Education of the amount it expects a school district to spend, based on the number of students in a district, average costs for materials and services, the number of special needs students in a district, and other factors. In 2014-15, the district’s budget was $213,116,438, not including debt service.

In 2014-15, Toms River spent $12,065 per student, with $1,004 of that going to administrators’ salaries and benefits. Toms River has a ratio of 240 students per administrator.

In Hamilton Township, a suburban district like Toms River that has three high schools and nearly 13,000 students, the budgeted per pupil cost was $13,459 in 2014-15 with $1,089 of that going to administrators’ salaries and benefits, with 210 students per administrator. Hamilton’s overall budget was $188 million, not including debt service.

And while state aid figures for 2016-17 released Friday show an increase of about $318,000 to Toms River, that’s not nearly enough to close the gap, he said.

Healy said he and Business Administrator William Doering have been working on the issue since August, trying to come up with possible solutions.

“How do we creatively find $6 million so we don’t reduce staff or programs? We’ve been spending the last year working on that,” Healy said. “I have a responsibility to this community.”

In Middletown, when Healy was the assistant superintendent, the district was blindsided with a $7.2 million reduction in state aid to the district in 2009-10. It wreaked havoc, he said.

In a situation like that, districts are faced with the dilemma of cutting staff and programs or significantly increasing taxes -- neither of which is a palatable solution, Healy said.

“No district has fully recovered from those state aid cuts,” he said.

Knowing the CDBG grant was slated to run out at the end of the 2015-16 school year, Healy said he and Doering have been working with Toms River Mayor Tom Kelaher and Business Administrator Paul Shives to look for ways to tackle the gap together.

“We went over all of the factors, and the thing that stood out was the way we were impacted by Sandy,” Healy said. Shives put together graphs and charts showing the impact, and the four met with state legislators, including both Sens. James Holzapfel and Christopher Connors, who represent portions of the district, in an effort to get assistance.

Holzapfel and Connors have urged Gov. Chris Christie to find temporary aid for both the district and the towns in the regional district, which would be facing significant tax increases just to maintain the status quo, or programming and staff cuts.

Those discussions are why the Board of Education passed a resolution last week asking Christie to help the town and district find a way to bridge the gap while the recovery from Sandy continues.

“I’m optimistic” Healy said, adding he and Doering are continuing to seek solutions.

“I’m invested in these kids, these teachers and this community,” he said. “I want us to keep moving in a positive direction.”