The budget includes funds for security upgrades, curriculum upgrades, capital improvements and more.
The Mt. Laurel Schools Board of Education used last week’s meeting to pass the 2018–2019 school year budget.
Similar to the tentative budget the board approved in March, total appropriations have been set at $75.8 million, which is in an increase from last year’s $75.1 million.
Of that $75.8 million, the total tax levy for the budget is $63.9 million, meaning Mt. Laurel homeowners with an average home assessed at $237,600 will see their local K-8 school tax bill increase 2.4 percent or $61.77 for the year.
Due recent shooting incidents across the country, the 2018–2019 school year budget also includes numerous security upgrades to the district.
Just some of those upgrades include the installation of vestibules at all eight of the district’s schools, which serve as small areas at the entrance to each building where visitors will remain until being guided to a main office before being allowed to enter the open hallways of a school.
Other security upgrades include exterior door lock replacements, additional security cameras, replacing classroom door locks at Hartford School and adding strobe lights in cafeterias and all purpose rooms to help better warn students of teachers of emergencies in areas of the school that officials say often can be noisy and hard to hear announcements.
The budget also adds a new position in the form of a “student assistance coordinator” meant to help identify and monitor at-risk students, as well as coordinate the district’s prevention and intervention efforts.
The budget will also see the board spend $80,000 toward the district’s shared service agreement with Mt. Laurel Township to fund two members of the Mt. Laurel Township Police Department to serve as School Resource Officers.
Previously the district had only one SRO.
Just some of the educational items funded in the budget include kindergarten materials and resources, literacy intervention kits, updated sixth-grade math resources, STEM materials and supplies and curriculum writing for kindergarten, health and physical education, media and sixth-grade math.
For technological purchases, the budget includes student ChromeBook replacements, ActivPanels and iPads for the district’s media centers and a continued investment in technological infrastructure.
The budget also includes multiple capital improvements, including an upgrade to Fleetwood Elementary School’s playground, combination lock replacements for the Harrington gym lockers, an update to the HVAC controller software, replacement for the Hartford rooftop HVAC unit, carpet to tile replacement at Hartford and Springville Elementary School, tile replacement at Hillside Elementary School, carpet replacement at the Parkway Elementary School library, curtain replacement at the Hartford stage and painting at the Parkway Library and at Hartford, Springville and Larchmont elementary schools.
For transportation upgrades, the budget will allow the district to replace two, 54-passenger buses and three, 24-passenger buses and install a live GPS and camera system in 10 buses.
This year’s budget also reflects a $324,000 increase the district received in state aid, bringing the district’s total state aid for the 2018–2019 school year to about $4.8 million.
However, as district officials have repeatedly noted, the district is still receiving less than the $5.8 million the district received in the 2009–2010 school year before former Gov. Christie cut aid for school districts.
District officials also noted several cost-saving measures in this year’s budget and other budgets in recent years, including being a part of a school health insurance fund with 59 districts resulting a less than 1.75 percent increase in health insurance costs this year, which district officials say is the lowest increase in years.
