WEST ORANGE, NJ — One of the most controversial school budgets in years has crossed the finish line in West Orange.
The West Orange Board of Education unanimously voted to approve the district’s 2026-2027 budget at their meeting on Monday. The meeting ran more than six hours, including several hours of emotion-laden public comment.
Watch video footage here, or view it below.
The “balanced” budget has $206,821,351 in both projected appropriations and revenues. The local tax levy comes to $168,740,972.
The budget comes with a 2.5 percent increase to the school portion of a local homeowner’s property taxes. An average homeowner with a property assessed at $614,976 will see an annual increase of $294.
The spending plan includes 77 staff cuts, in addition to outsourcing some services such as paraprofessionals. Other cost-cutting measures include increases in class sizes across the district, consolidation of courses, a restructuring of the middle school schedule, cuts to sports, and transportation and busing adjustments.
District administrators say the cuts are needed to balance a $13.5 million budget deficit, which includes rising costs for health benefits (17.8%), district insurance (8%), special education tuition (6%), transportation (3.58%) and employee salaries (3.5%).
Superintendent Hayden Moore, who recently wrote a letter to the school community about the budget, said “everyone understands that every number has a human behind it.”
However, rising costs are outpacing the district’s tax revenue – and it will require a “business restructuring” in West Orange, he said.
“Other organizations in this situation might be able to file for chapter 13 or chapter 11 or even close their doors, but we're a public school and we cannot,” Moore said.
The district’s business administrator, Tonya Flowers, said West Orange is seeing a “staggering” increase to its health benefit costs due to volatile market rates – a complaint that other nearby school districts have also been making.
“These are all required costs of operating the district and the increases consistently outpace our available revenue making the structural budget deficit unavoidable,” Flowers said.
SCHOOL SPORTS
According to Moore, the district will still have freshman sports under the latest spending plan. However, it will not include middle school sports.
“But I did work with our parent boosters for our middle school sports and I've connected with our recreation department and we are meeting and coming up with a way to take over our middle school sports,” the superintendent added.
The district will be donating its uniforms to the recreation department, he said.
PROTEST, PUBLIC COMMENT
A wave of concerned community members rallied against the cuts during a six-hour marathon meeting on April 20.
Some speakers said they are worried about privatization, expressing concern for paraprofessionals who may suddenly have to reapply for their jobs. Others questioned how much money it would save the district – and how it would impact special education students.
School staff members affiliated with the West Orange Education Association (WOEA) and their supporters held a rally on Pleasant Valley Way outside West Orange High School to protest the budget cuts on Sunday.
Protesters decried the decision to outsource its paraprofessionals, who support special education students in classrooms and school-related activities.
According to the demonstrators, “privatizing” paraprofessionals in West Orange’s schools will lower the quality of crucial support that special education students rely on.
“One third of paras who currently work in our schools are West Orange residents; they know and meet the needs of our students and the West Orange community,” said Josh Goldfarb, president of the WOEA.
“Outsourcing these jobs to an agency would lead to inconsistent support by strangers with no relationship or commitment to our students and schools,” Goldfarb said.
The public outcry continued at Monday’s school board meeting, both before and after the board voted on the budget.
Kimya Jackson, principal at Redwood Elementary, spoke in glowing terms of the paraprofessionals who have worked in her school.
“I need to know what September looks like,” she said, her voice wavering with emotion. “I’m respectfully asking: what does it look like at Redwood where I have a third of my staff gone?
A paraprofessional who currently works at Redwood also implored the school board to change their minds about outsourcing.
“Will you be going to the schools?” she asked. “Will you be helping toilet children? Will you be changing diapers? Because that’s what the paras do day in and day out. And I want to know who will be responsible – because the teachers can’t take time away from their instruction to do it.”
Watch video footage from the May 4 board of education meeting below
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