Dr. Foregger’s Response to BOE Candidate Question 2: Budget Priorities

Oct 6, 2024

Dr. Foregger’s Response to the Second in Our Series of Questions to the 2024 BOE Candidates

Our school budget keeps increasing and our per-pupil costs are relatively high compared to neighboring towns. Yet our proficiencies, while improving, are still subpar, and our rankings continue to fall.

We need to understand what components of our budget are high so we can evaluate whether the extra expenditures are providing value to the students. We know our administrative and athletic per-pupil costs are quite a bit higher than those for neighboring districts, but we need to understand what other areas of expenditures may be high.

One way to do this is to look at the amount the state deems necessary for a thorough and efficient education. Our budget document for 2024-25 shows that according to the State we need to spend about $32.6M to provide an adequate education to our students but we budgeted about $46.7M, which is 43% higher than the adequacy budget amount. While the State only provides a total amount, summing up amounts in a number of categories, it does provide the models used to compute each of the piece parts. We could use the models to identify which areas of our budget are high, and then assess whether the extra expenses are actually providing a significant benefit to the students.

Another method to identify areas of higher cost is to utilize the annual Taxpayers’ Guide to Education Spending from the NJ Department of Education. For example from the most recent Guide we can find that within Union County K-12 districts our budgeted per pupil cost for 2022-23 was the highest. One can then use the Guide to identify components of the total that need closer examination.

The method used to develop our budget is based on an opportunity model rather than the adequacy model. The opportunity model simply declares that more opportunity equates to a better education. That can easily lead to unnecessary spending and bloated budgets, but we still have the constraint of a 2% property tax cap on our budget.

The real issue of course is what the community priorities are. In the past we used to have the community vote whether or not to approve the budget but we gave that up in return for agreeing to live within a 2% cap.

That cap seems to have been quietly eliminated last April, at least for this year, due to a change in State law. Districts that experience a loss of State aid can now exceed the 2% growth in property taxes without any voter approval but only to the extent of the loss of aid and subject to a 9.9% property tax cap. If the 2% growth cap is truly gone for each year then we need to go back to having a budget vote.

It would be useful to do a community survey on relative priorities. To be really meaningful, we would need to structure the survey to reflect the 2% budget constraint.

As was pointed out, we have made strides in involving the community in the budget review process. In the future we must provide a detailed proposed budget to the public well in advance of any budget hearings.

In summary, we must work to understand the areas wherVisit Sitee our budget is comparatively high on a per student basis and decide if the increased expenditures are warranted in terms of the benefit to the students. And we must strive to get more and better information on community priorities.

Disclaimer: The above statements are made in my capacity as a private citizen, and not in my capacity as a board member. These statements are also not representative of the board or its individual members, and solely represent my own personal opinions,