The township board of education approved a 2024-’25 budget of more than $98 millon during its May 7 meeting at the Deptford Middle School cafeteria.
Board secretary Ronald Latham, Superintendent Kevin Kanauss and Chief Academic Officer Heather Jackson first discussed the details of the financial plan with residents at the session.
“When the three of us took over as the new administration for the district,” noted Kanuass, “it was important to us as former teachers to come up with a vision, mission and values for our district that are student focused and teacher centered.
“What we arrived at is that our students will be lifelong scholars, curious learners, critical thinkers, effective problem solvers and innovative leaders,” he added. “That’s how we base all of our decision.”
The budget’s exact total is $98,507,019, according to Latham, a 7% increase from last year’s financial plan of approximately $92 million. The majority of expenditures will fund the school district’s instruction and programs for students, about 42.91% of the total, according to Latham.
Expenditures for the current year and next were compared and contrasted during the meeting. While most areas of spending for 2024-’25 will see increases compared with the current year, three areas will see decreases: co-curriculum and athletics, a 17.27% decrease; security, a 7.83% decrease; and equipment/capital projects, a -2.79% decrease.
But Latham emphasized that the decreases do not mean district program cuts.
“It’s not a cut to anything but the athletic fields,” he explained. “The varsity football field was on a five-year lease purchase; we are done that. We no longer have to pay that. That’s why there looks like a cut to the co-curriculum and athletics line.
“We would never take away money from security,” Latham added, “but there are things in the security line that did not belong there, so I was just fixing the budget.”
The board also noted that it was able to keep the burden on taxpayers below approximately 2%, in part due to state aid of $35,258,554 for the 2024-’25 year.
“Ron (Latham) came to us and we actually had the ability to raise taxes to about 4%,” said board President Joseph McKenna. “We had state aid, and with the board being fiscally responsible, we did not exercise the option to do that, which we could have. We did not; we kept it at 2% because we had the state aid.”
The next Deptford board of ed meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 21.
