Monroe Township Board of Education looks to combat $1.8 million debt
At the latest Monroe Township Board of Education meeting, business administrator Lisa Schulz gave a preliminary presentation of the 2019–2020 budget.
Schulz made it clear this was very preliminary, as Gov. Murphy hasn’t said how much schools will receive in state aid.
“Our state aid flat is approximately $35,700,000,” she said. “In the ‘18-’19 school year, we did receive an additional state aid amount of approximately $1.7 [million]. We do not know if we’re receiving that for ‘19-’20. The governor will make his address at the end of February, we will not receive our state aid figures until March 5.”
Because of the work done at Holly Glen along with other projects, the board has found itself roughly $1.8 million in the hole.
“We had many challenges as a school district this past year involving Holly Glen and other facility issues, so pulling the budget together on the various situations and challenges has been quite an obstacle,” Superintendent Richard Perry said. “I would like to commend Lisa Schulz for doing a yeoman’s job in pulling it together. We’re working by way of developing this budget with the mindset I had in other districts, I don’t want to cut programs, teachers, staff anything that affects students, and we’re going to do everything we can to ensure that occurs.”
One of the ways Schulz and Perry plan to combat the debt is using the 2 percent tax levy. This, assuming the state aid comes in around the same figure, should put the district back on even ground.
“If we just go with our local tax levy we’re currently at, and say it comes in at the same state aid as last year, say $1.9 million and we’re in the hole $1.8 million. Does that just knock that 2 percent completely out where we don’t have to discuss it anymore?” Vice president of the board Jeff Simpler asked.
Schulz and Perry said the 2 percent is included. However, these talks are only preliminary as the state aid figures are not available yet.
In other news:
- A contract was awarded for the first two phases of the Holly Glen project. Dandrea Construction, Inc. won the bid with a base bid of $1,000,529, and alternate number one of $260,000; alternate number two of $40,000 and alternate number three of $230,000 for a total bid of $1,829,000.
“We identified what the causes were in regard to the Holly Glen mold issues,” Perry said. “We broke it down into three phases: we have tier one that deals with building envelope, roofing and exterior drainage needs. Tier two deals with underground drainage and site needs. Tier three is coming, which deals with mechanical issues, creating a positive airflow in the building, reversing the negative airflow in which moisture was created in the building.”
- The board agreed to authorize Federici & Akin, an engineering firm, to go out to bid for tier three using capital reserve funding not to exceed approximately $1million.
- Perry still anticipates Holly Glen to be open for the next school year.
- The next board of education meeting is on Feb. 28 at 7 p.m. at Williamstown High School.
