Cinnaminson BOE talks upcoming budget proposal process and introduces parents to counseling department
The next few months will see new principals in place in the district as well as a proposed budget for the 2019 to 2020 school year
By Stephen Finn
The Sun
At last Tuesday’s Cinnaminson board of education meeting, board members discussed the upcoming budget, hiring of new administrators and updates from the district’s auditor and counseling department.
During his monthly report, Superintendent Stephen Cappello announced Business Administrator Thomas Egan is preparing the 2019–2020 district budget reports. He anticipates Gov. Murphy to give his budget address, which schools are tied to, around March 5, with state aid numbers to follow.
Shortly thereafter, and with input from the board and finance committee, Egan will prepare a preliminary budget, due to the county by March 20.
According to Cappello, the anticipated date for a public hearing on the proposed budget will be April 30. He promised to keep the public updated as the budget process unfolds.
During his report, Cappello also announced the district will be looking to fill two open positions for principals at the high school and elementary school levels in the coming months. He anticipates a posting for the jobs to be up within the week and hiring to begin in April.
“We’ll be looking for stakeholder input from staff, students, board members and the public as we look to fill these positions,” said Cappello. “It’s a pretty comprehensive process, that’s why we’re earmarking about two months for it.”
During the meeting, auditor Robert Inverso presented the annual financial report for the year ending June 30, 2018. According to his report, total revenue for the district, including local taxes, tuition, transportation fees, federal and state aid, came to $44,159,622.
Within the same period, expenditures, including regular instruction, special education, support services and undistributed costs totalled $43,205,152. This resulted in a net profit for the year of $954,470.
Following the auditor’s report, Supervisor of Guidance and Counseling Donna Lobascio led a presentation introducing residents to the counseling department serving their schools.
Each staff member addressed those present at the meeting with a summary of their responsibilities and their personal approach to working with students in the respective age groups that they serve.
“A couple of years ago the board had asked for curricular updates for supervisors to know what the latest goings on are in our individual departments, so as we move into the month of February, Ms. Lobascio decided not only to give us an update on what’s happening in the counseling department, but she also brought along some of her team,” said Cappello before turning the meeting over to Lobascio.
Lobascio began with a series of updates on her department, including the development of a new K-12 curriculum over the past summer.
“What we had was kind of antiquated so we really went from scratch and developed that,” said Lobascio. “Linda Collella did the middle school, Mike Repsher worked on the high school, and I did the elementary.”
Lobascio announced new areas of focus for her department, including developing social and emotional learning skills, grit and resilience among students she believes are especially important for young people today.
“Social and emotional learning skills are (something) you’ll be hearing a lot about if you haven’t already,” said Lobascio. “I’m sure you’ve heard that there is a rise in anxiety and depression, especially among our young kids, and we take that very seriously.”
According to Lobascio, the new curriculum was specifically designed to address these areas of focus for the district going forward.
