School budget in voters’ hands
By ROBERT LINNEHAN
The Cherry Hill Sun
4/11/2010

Ending one of the most contentious and difficult budgetary seasons, as described by several board of education members last week, the 2010-11 Cherry Hill School District budget is now in the hands of the township voters.

The $166.76 million budget will feature an increase in the tax levy by 4 percent and an increase in the tax rate by 9 cents. The average assessed home of $140,000 in Cherry Hill can expect an increase in its tax bill by about $122 next year, Business Administrator Jim Devereaux said.

The budget passed by a vote of 8-1, with board member Kenneth Hartman casting the only vote against the budget. Board member Eric Goodwin and President Lisa Conn cast their votes via Skype, as they were not able to attend the meeting in person.

“Last year we recommended as a board a zero percent levy increase. This year we had to recommend a 4 percent increase,” board member Elliot Roth said. “I’d love to be able to recommend a zero-percent increase each year, but we just could not this year.”

Making the season incredibly difficult was Gov. Christie’s decision several weeks ago to decrease the district’s state aid by more than $8 million. Combined with the state’s earlier action of denying the district the $3.9 million it had budgeted for excess fund balance in its ’10-11 budget, Devereaux said the state was basically taking $12.4 million from the district in the span of eight weeks.

The only good news, Devereaux said, is the governor signed a mandate last week that would require employees with undecided contracts to contribute 1.5 percent of their salaries to cover their health benefits. That measure – coupled with further reductions in the estimated ’09-10 teacher salary increases – gave the district more than $820,000 to reinsert back into the ’10-11 budget or use as tax relief.

The Board voted to use all $820,000 in funds to reinstate eight elementary Spanish teachers, four high school English teachers – which saves the high school English seminar program – and the Mt. Misery program. More than $270,000 was also dedicated for capital projects within the district for ’10-11. A part-time nurse was also reinstated. The decades-old Mt. Misery program was pulled off of the chopping block at the last minute for the second straight year in a row. Several members of the public had spoken in the program’s favor before the board decided to reinstate the popular middle school program event. Elanore Stofman, president of the Cherry Hill Education Foundation, said Mt. Misery has been one of the most popular programs in the school district for the past 40 years.

A page on Facebook was recently created to support Mt. Misery, she said, and it already had 2,400 fans.

However, taxes were on the minds of many speakers, as they petitioned the Board to limit the tax levy increase and the impact it had on their bills. Dan Grzybowski, a father of a student in the district, said he didn’t want to be forced to tell his son they had to move away from Cherry Hill because he couldn’t afford to live in the township.

“I have no more money. I don’t have any more to spend on taxes,” he said. “I don’t want to move from Cherry Hill. I don’t want to tell my son we have to move because I can’t afford to live here because of the taxes.”

Board member Wayne Tarken proposed an amendment that would have used the additional $820,000 as tax relief for the residents. However, the amendment died on the table, as it did not receive a second.

If it had passed it would have decreased the tax levy increase to 3.4 percent, or a $25 reduction for the average assessed home’s tax bill.

The majority of the Board ended up in support of the budget, including Tarken, when the final vote was cast. Board member and chair of the budget committee Steve Robbins said this was not the end of the work for the board. The group will continue to look for extra funding, grant opportunities, and ways to reduce expenditures in the future.

The Board of Education elections will be held on Tuesday, April 20 from 2 to 9 p.m. For a complete list of voting district and more information on the ’10-11 budget, please visit the Cherry Hill School District Web site at Cherryhill.k12.nj.us.