By ROBERT LINNEHAN
Members of the Evesham K-8 Board of Education passed a preliminary budget last week that reduced the 2011–2012 school tax levy by almost $200,000 from the current year. Despite the reduction, Business Administrator Dennis Nettleton reported that the average assessed homeowner in Evesham will likely see an increase in their school tax bills for 2011–2012.
The BOE unanimously approved the preliminary version of its 2011–2012 budget last week. The $65.9 million general fund school district budget is a 6.56 percent decrease from the present year’s $67.49 million budget.
Including debt service and special funding the total budget is $72.9 million, Nettleton said.
Nettleton reported that the school tax rate, inclusive of debt service, will be set at $1.03 per every $100 of assessed property value. The average assessed home in Evesham Township is valued at $276,100.
The total school tax levy is less than the 2010–2011 levy by more than $155,500. However because of declining ratables in Evesham Township the average assessed homeowner’s bill could increase by $40 next year, Nettleton said, or $3.33 a month.
The last time the Evesham K-8 BOE proposed a budget that decreased its tax levy from the prior year was over a decade ago, Nettleton said. In 2008 the district came close, reported Nettleton, only raising the school tax rate by less than a percent.
