Clearview Regional School district to receive no increase in state funding
Along with the rest of New Jersey school districts, Clearview Regional is in the midst of budget season.
“Right now, it is a work in progress,” said Esther Pennell, Clearview Regional business administrator and board secretary, at the March Board of Education meeting.
Pennell submitted the preliminary budget to the county superintendent at the end of March. Once the budget is returned to the district, it will be made available to residents to review. A public hearing on the budget is set for April 26 during the monthly Board of Education meeting.
The total dollar number submitted is $40,153,955. This is a $367,126 decrease from last year’s total budget.
Two lines of note in the budget this year are a slight rise in taxes and a zero percent increase in state aid.
Being a regional school district, the numbers among taxpayers are divvied up differently among the sending districts.
Mantua Township residents with an average assessed home value of $205,513 will see a $31.50 annual increase, a 1.53 cent increase from last year.
Harrison Township residents with an average assessed home value of $341,695 will see a $110.83 annual increase, a 3.24 cent increase from last year.
Harrison and Mantua township residents can expect to supply approximately 52 percent of the 2018–19 budget, with Harrison Township residents carrying 51.67 percent of the weight to Matua’s 48.33 percent.
The driving force behind these numbers is fixed costs, including salaries and benefits, according to Pennell.
During the March Board of Education meeting, Pennell noted the district sees a need to increase the general fund tax levy above the 2 percent state cap for the increase in health-care costs in the amount of $338,496.
This is due in part to the the district’s realization of flat state aid for the upcoming year.
Clearview Regional and Harrison Township School District are, as of now, the only districts in Gloucester County to see no increase in state aid.
The board is researching and reaching out to sources to discover the reason for the lack of an increase. At this point, Clearview Regional is set to receive the same amount as last year, $15,000,094.
“It is very unfortunate,” Pennell said.
She mentioned the combination of flat state aid and a state cap of 2 percent on the tax levy is not the best situation for Clearview for the upcoming school year.
“It’s unfortunate, we are on the other side of the equation this year,” she said, noting the district looks to keep taxes down whenever possible.
In a moment of speculation at the meeting, the board discussed the topic of decreased enrollment as a possible contributing factor to the zero percent increase of state aid.
Since October 2012, around the time the state began using the current formula for calculating district aid, Clearview Regional School District has seen a decrease of 242 students.
With the availability of viewing the projected enrollment figures of Harrison and Mantua township school districts, Superintendent John Horchak noted numbers are down.
However, other districts in the county are seeing a similar decrease in enrollment but are receiving an increase in state aid this year.
More information on this topic will be provided once it is made available.
“In general, there were a lot of cuts to the budget,” Pennell said.
She stated in a separate interview that multiple construction projects either deferred or completed this school year have assisted with cutting costs.
“Overall, this is a decrease compared to 2017–18,” she said but also added the budget “is in no way balanced at this point.”
The district expects to receive a $175,000 surplus from the health insurance fund.
“They will release that money to us during the summer to do a one-time project to replace the cooling tower on top of the middle school roof that’s nearing end of life,” Pennell said.
In other news:
• During the public comments portion of the meeting, Nikki Koppenhafer of Mantua, a mother of a Clearview Regional High School student, said, “First I want to start out by saying ‘thank you’ so much for checking everything out and shutting down [the district] and making sure everything was safe for our kids,” in reference to the March 14 district shutdown.
“The one concerning thing is the day after,” Koppenhafer said, referencing police presence at the school conducting searches before allowing students to enter the buildings. While pleased with the district’s and law enforcement’s security measures, she said, “I want my daughter and two younger ones coming up to realize this is not normal.”
Koppenhafer discussed that as a parent she fears some of today’s youth are a bit desensitized to the gun violence in schools partly due to the frequency of these tragic events.
“I don’t want her to be paranoid, but I felt she should have been a little bit of something,” Koppenhafer said.
• The conversation carried over into a discussion about further school safety, including the creation of a team of 18 volunteers representing administration, support and teaching staff. This staff priority is to develop ideas for further safety measures at the school, Horchak mentioned.
“We’ve taken about 20 to 30 different ideas to improve security and are prioritizing that list,” Horchak said.
The district has also met regularly with local law enforcement about working conditions of existing measures.
• A motion was approved to implement the “Iron Pioneer Award,” a $500 scholarship to both a female and male student-athlete “who models a disciplined lifestyle of health and wellness based on their participation and success in Clearview’s weight training program,” the motion reads. The scholarships are to be awarded at Senior Awards Night and included in the graduation program.
