Middletown BOE Approves Final Budget: Spending Plan Set for Vote

Thomas Pagano, Middletown’s interim schools superintendent, Thursday night called for residents to forget about last year’s past of budget bad news and look to  the newly adopted 2011-2012 $144 million budget as an earmark of positivity. “It is a time to move on and not have negative energy," he said at the budget's public hearing at High School North. "What happened last year is done …”

The cost to residents, should the budget pass voter approval, would be $6.16 a month (including debt service) or $74 a year, for a home/property assessed at what is roughly the township’s average of $435,000.

That represents a 1.4 percent hike in the budget over last year’s spending plan figure of roughly $139 million, which still ended up costing the district a cut of 127 staff positions.

Only a few residents spoke in the public portion before the resolution to finalize the budget for a vote was unanimously passed by the Board of Education. But, those who did stressed that they thought if the public realized how “little” a hike the budget going to the polls represented, then more residents would be more likely to cast a “yes” vote.

“Tonight, this budget belongs to the Board of Education,” Pagano said to the audience. “After tonight, this budget belongs to you and the (rest of the) residents of Middletown. After the election (if the budget is voted down), the budget belongs to the township … Education is my business. It should be your business, too.”

He explained state protocol that if the budget is voted down as is, then it goes to the Township Committee for cuts. Once the committee is done lopping an unapproved budget, what the district initially wanted in the one brought to the polls could change quite a bit in areas where residents may be less likely to welcome changes. Once a schools budget gets to that defeated point, though, it is out of their hands.

Pagano strongly recommended residents to keeping it in their hands by sanctioning at voting polls what the board thinks is the best budget the district can get, considering state statutes with which it must comply.

There is especially good news about this year’s spending plan, which will now be submitted to the Monmouth County Superintendent of Schools as a final version to be put up for vote at the board elections on April 27, Pagano said.

That good news, he added, is that Middletown, the largest district in the county, stayed well within the two percent spending cap — by coming in $906,166 below it — while still offering added amenities to students.

“Most programs have been returned and enhanced,” he said, including the district’s relatively new (existing for about a year and a half) all-day Kindergarten.

According to Pagano’s and Business Administrator/Board Secretary Amy Gallagher’s presentation, this year’s budget will also allow for the maintenance of: existing academic and co-curricular programs, staff, athletic programs, curriculum (new and revised), busing and building maintenance, which Pagano called critical since some of the district’s 17 buildings are in dire need.

The budget will also allow for the addition of 3.5 staff positions “to address class size” in the middle and high schools.

Salaries and benefits, Gallagher explained, account for about 79 percent of the budget, or roughly $86 million for the 1,414 employees in the district. That figure is down by 1.7 percent from last year’s $87.6 million cost. 

Gallagher also drew attention to the fact that while benefits costs increased by 20.5 percent, from roughly $23.3 million last year to $28 million this year, the district shaved off nearly $800,000 from the initial cost by researching and finding more cost-effective plans.

Resident Jodi Rose argued the proposed cut of 33 paraprofessionals in the district, saying that especially in the Kindergarten classes, the lack of assistants in the classrooms to do what can be time consuming things, like escort the youngest children to the bathroom, open juice boxes and teach them how to hold a pencil, will detract from the instructional time that she thinks is now high quality.

Board member Joan Minnues and Gallagher explained that state and county requirements concerning paraprofessionals leaves that cut out of their hands.

“If we put them back in, the county will just take them out again,” Minnues explained, adding that she fully understood the concern.

“You have a $144 million budget and this represents a $320,000 reduction. I just don’t see the point,” Rose said.

From now until April 27, there will be budget presentations at all of the district’s schools. In addition, detailed budget facts will be posted on the board’s Web site.

Click here for more information.