School Budget: A Breakdown of the Cuts

If you missed the March 22 meeting on the Scotch Plains-Fanwood School District 2010-2011 budget, tonight's your chance to come out and voice your questions and concerns before the Board of Education adopts it later in the meeting.

In anticipation of the hearing, the school district has posted a chart detailing the cuts and changes coming for 2010-2011 as part of the $80,958,048 budget on its Web site.

Not much was spared from cuts. Here's a look at what's been reduced:

• Basic skills, -2.83 percent
• Co-curricular activities (salaries, general supplies), -0.27 percent
• Community education and public information services, -100 percent
• Health services, -11.18 percent; 
• Guidance (Counselors, supplies, substance abuse coordinator), -2.38 percent
• Child study teams, -3.85 percent
• Improvement of instructional services (supervisors, IT), -5.83 percent
• Educational media (media specialists, library books, periodicals, audio visuals, general supplies), -6.75 percent
• Staff training, -8.19 percent
• General administration (Central administration, attorney, insurance, Board of Education, communications), -11.53 percent
• Transportation, -0.60 percent
• Support services - Business (auditor, negotiator, staff services, election services, data processing, duplicating, bookkeeping supplies), -13.32 percent
• Capital 0utlay (instructional and non-instructional equipment), -1.58 percent
• Staff and federal programs (non-public textbooks, non-public nursing, non-public auxiliary services, IDEA Part B, NCLB), -18.6 percent

Regular instruction, which includes teachers, substitutes, gifted & talented, general supplies and textbooks, got a .11 percent increase. It makes up the largest part of the budget at 30.22 percent.

The local tax levy (including debt service) will make up 95 percent of the budget at $77,311,517. $500,139 will come from surplus savings; $695,590 from miscellaneous; $659,090 from state aid and $1,791,712 from other aid.

The estimated tax increase is 4.32 percent this year for Scotch Plains, bringing it up by $299, or 26.8 cents per $100 of assessed value. In Fanwood, taxes will rise by $439, or 44.7 cents per $100 of assessed value. Scotch Plains will make up 77.32 percent of the budget, while Fanwood will pick up the remaining 22.68 percent.

Business Administrator Anthony Del Sordi has previously noted that Fanwood's contribution to the budget continues to go up because the equalized valuation in the borough has dropped at a lower rate than Scotch Plains.

After tonight's budget adoption, the Board of Education will host a series of budget presentations prior to the April 20 election. Here's a look at those dates:

Monday, April 5: 7:30 p.m., Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School

Monday, April 6: 7:30 p.m., Candidates Night

Wednesday, April 7: 7 p.m., Evergreen Elementary

Thursday, April 8: 6:30 p.m., Coles Elementary, 7 p.m., McGinn Elementary

Tuesday, April 13: 7:30 p.m., Park Middle, 7:30 p.m., Terrill Middle

Wednesday, April 14: 7 p.m., Brunner Elementary, 7:30 p.m., School One

Thursday, April 15: 8 p.m., Board of Education meeting

Monday, April 19: 7:30 p.m., PTA Ed Forum, 7:30 p.m., Kindergarten Parents Meeting

Tuesday, April 20: 2 to 9 p.m., School Board Elections