SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD, NJ — As has been the trend for a long time, the South Orange-Maplewood School District is facing a considerable budget deficit for the 2017-2018 school year.
Business Administrator Paul Roth presented the 2017-2018 preliminary budget, based on “zero-based” budgeting, at the Feb. 27 Board of Education meeting and highlighted a $2.36 million budget deficit that, if not closed, will likely result in service and job cuts.
“Yes, we are losing services. We are losing programs and services, year in and year out. That’s the reality,” Superintendent of Schools John Ramos Sr. said at the meeting. “We cannot expect that when you cut 19 positions one year and you are faced with another deficit, as we are this year, that programs and services are probably going to remain the same. They are not. They’re not.”
Under the projected revenue column, which currently totals $128,164,044, the district expects funds from state aid, the fund balance, miscellaneous fees such as tuition, debt service, and state and federal grants, with the majority of the money projected to come from the local tax levy. Currently, at a 2-percent tax increase — the maximum mandated by state law — taxpayers will be providing $113,961,211. This number increases when debt service and banked cap is added. According to Roth, this amounts to 94 percent of the projected revenue.
Despite this revenue stream, the district currently has a $2.36 million deficit between projected revenue and projected appropriations. Providing for increases in purchase services, utilities, employee benefits, transportations and tuition, while keeping services and staffing levels flat, the district is projecting $130,532,707 in expenditures.
However, after using adjustments and banked cap, a total of $1,475,575, the deficit would fall to $893,088.
While the current budget is not proposing to cut staff or services, this is nevertheless being considered due to the deficit.
During his presentation, Roth exhibited a chart showing that student enrollment is climbing steadily, while district staff numbers have been mostly static, though trending toward decreases. As of 2016-2017, there are nearly 7,000 students in the district, and fewer than 745 full-time educators.
“We’re pushing more classes to maximum class size limits than ever before. We have more people working later and later into the night and, at some point, we will begin to struggle at meeting deadlines and quality of work,” Roth said, adding that the only way to stall this would be to receive “some funding relief.”
“At some point we can’t do more with less,” Roth continued. “At some point we have to say, ‘If we cut this, we really can’t provide the service.”
And it does not seem that funding relief will be coming from the state. As of press time, according to the 2017-2018 projected State Funding Reform Act K-12 state school aid data, the SOMSD will see no change in its state funding — no more, no less. The SOMSD has remained static at $4,307,567, according to the state.
According to district statistics, state aid has been level — making up approximately 3.5 percent of the district’s revenue — since the 2013-2014 school year. It had hit a substantial low in the 2010-2011 school year, when it only accounted for approximately 1 percent of the district’s revenue. While the numbers are better now, they are still nowhere near the approximately 6 percent it covered in 2009-2010 or the approximately 7 percent it covered in 2003-2004.
And relief is unlikely to come from the federal government which, now under the purview of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, is working to cut funding from public schools. According to Roth, the school district is expecting a 1.4-percent drop in federal monies.
“There’s no way around this unless we become a revenue-generating source ourselves,” Ramos said. “I think the people are beginning to understand that tax dollars go only so far as long as we continue to abide by the 2-percent cap. We have to find other ways of generating revenue.
The Board of Education invites community input throughout the budget process. To provide feedback, speak at a public meeting or contact the district through Let’s Talk.
The board will hold a community forum Monday, March 13, at 7 p.m. on the 2017-2018 budget at the Montrose Early Childhood Center, 356 Clark St. in South Orange. The board will meet again Saturday, March 18, at 9:30 a.m. to consider and adopt the preliminary budget to submit to the Essex County superintendent for approval to advertise; this meeting will also be held at the Montrose Early Childhood Center. Finally, the board will meet Monday, April 24, at 7:30 p.m. at Montrose for a public hearing and take action to levy the 2017-2018 school tax.
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