Schools

Bernards Schools Receive Massive Cut in State Aid

The Bernards school district was handed an 82 percent cut in state aid for education funding today.

Bernards will lose 82 percent of its state aid for education according to numbers released today from the NJ Department of Education.

State aid figures for school funding were released at 3:30 p.m. today, Bernards will receive $847,891 in 2010-11, down from $4.73 million in the current year.

N.J. Education Commissioner Brett Schundler held a press conference with reporters following the announcement saying, "[School districts] are going to face extremely difficult times financially."

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The Bernards Board of Education had been using a 10 percent reduction in state aid as a guideline figure in their budget projections to date.

According to the last public projection, the best-case scenario for the district was for the district to receive their full $2.4 million funding for extraordinary aid funding, a maximum $1.5 million in property tax cap waivers and a 10 percent reduction on overall state aid. Under that scenario, the district predicted they would not have to make cuts for the 2010-11 school year, but would face a funding cliff for the following year after exhausting reserve funds.

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The extraordinary aid funding will be determined later, but the schools will now be short at least nearly $3.5 million more than originally determined in the best-case scenario.

Commissioner Schundler also said while current law allows for districts to propose waivers over the current four percent property tax increase cap, he will be working with county superintendent's to urge districts not to exceed the current cap. Gov. Christie also proposed a constitutional amendment for this fall to reduce the four percent tax cap to 2.5 percent with no waivers, although that would not effect the 2010-11 school budget process.

The worst-case scenario proposed by the board in February was for a three percent tax cap with minimum waivers and $2 million in cuts for 2010-11. The board will likely be able to pursue a higher property tax increase than in that projection, but will still have to account for the near $3.5 million additional cut from the state than in projections.

Schundler emphasized the potential savings to school districts if Gov. Christie's benefits reform plans are passed soon. The reforms would allow school districts to save money by requiring teachers to contribute at least 1.5 percent of their salaries towards healthcare as well putting a cap on the amount of sick pay retired public employees can redeem. If passed within the next few weeks, the schools could theoretically factor in the additional savings toward the upcoming school budget, though the overall effect remains to be seen.

Bernards school officials could not be reached immediately after the figures were released, but Bernards School District Business Administrator Nick Markarian said yesterday after Gov. Christie's budget address, "We're going to be faced with some real challenges in the future."

Markarian also addressed the benefits reforms proposed by Christie. "If [the pension reforms] happen tomorrow, maybe it will affect my current budget, but if it happens in April, we may have had the board hearing on the budget by then," Markarian said. "If I knew that 1.5 percent of every teacher's salary is coming back to the school district to help pay for health benefits, that would change my health benefits budget. But I don't know when that may or may not happen though, so I can't really say how that will affect the current year's budget."


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