Tight expected WO school budget may require cuts

WEST ORANGE, NJ — The West Orange Board of Education began work on the 2022-2023 school district budget at a special meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 19, the administration sharing the first projected expenses
and revenues with board members at the meeting. None of the numbers are finalized, as the district will not receive news about how much state aid it will receive this year until the third week of February.

“One of the key projected revenues is our state aid,” Superintendent Scott Cascone said at the meeting. “These projections with which we’ve provided the board are based upon the fact that our state aid remains the same. If we end up having an increase in state aid, then the projected deficit would certainly be less than it is presently.”

The total budget as it stands right now is $175,495,164, according to business administrator Tonya Flowers at the meeting. If the state aid remains flat, there will have to be a $2.6 million cut in the budget. In the 2021-2022 budget, WOSD received $21.9 million. If cuts need to happen, BOE member Melinda Huerta asked what they would be. Cascone said there is not yet an answer.

“We wanted to have this introductory conversation with the board, to get a sense of the board’s will, before we went too far down that rabbit hole of cuts,” he said. “We’re hoping to walk away from this meeting with a clearer sense of the number that we need to get to, in terms of cuts, and then we can begin those conversations.”

Cascone said each building principal made staffing requests for the upcoming year, which were then pared down to what would realistically fit in the budget. He explained how the district makes decisions on which positions to add and cut, based on the budget each year.

“One could assert that the present composition of the staff is a reflection of priorities as they are, maybe in some ways as they were,” Cascone said. “So when you look at new staffing requests, it’s a matter of making determinations as to which are high priorities. That’s a very subjective conversation, because what’s high priority to one person may not be to another.”

A high-priority hire is a third-grade teacher at Hazel Elementary School. There are 53 students who are currently in second grade this year and will be moving on to third grade in September; they are currently in three separate classrooms. If those students are combined into the two current third-grade classrooms next year, classes would have about 26 students each.

“That doesn’t account for any kind of influx,” Cascone said. “Hazel happens to be one of the schools where we’re seeing the largest number of students coming in; in fact, we’ve had to overflow a number of students to Gregory Elementary School for that reason. By putting in a third section, we not only ensure an effective class size, but also that students that might come into Hazel anytime between the approval of the budget and the course of next school year are able to attend their neighborhood school.”

Priorities such as the third-grade staff at Hazel are juxtaposed with other hiring requests, to determine which are most pressing. They are discussed with the internal staff before being taken to the BOE in a budget proposal.

According to Cascone, school districts in New Jersey have largely been able to fund most priorities in the past, but now, while the COVID-19 pandemic is still going on, they are having to make tougher financial decisions.
“The rubber is sort of meeting the road at this point in time,” he said. “It will require a certain degree of introspection on the part of the community to determine what our priorities are when it really comes down to it.”