Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Middletown school board to vote on final spending plan


Good job by Jennifer Bradshaw of the Asbury Park Press reporting on the Middletown school budget that will be voted on at tonights Board of Education meeting (I included her report at the bottom of this post).

The meeting agenda and resolutions were posted on the BoE website late Monday afternoon , I didn't see them posted until shortly after noon yesterday, but I was unable to post about it until know.

There are a number of things that I found interesting and that pertain to tomorrow night's meeting that will be open for discussion:

  1. The Meeting Agenda - Page 5 of the agenda lists the reductions in the budget that the BoE will be moving forward with. As Jennifer Bradshaw reports in the article below the BoE did not follow the township committees suggestion to eliminate two vice principals, an assistant business administrator or a directors position for a savings of $347,000. Instead they found savings (breakage) from teachers that announced their retirements since the budget was first proposed.
  2. Personnel Committee Report - This report lists the names of district employees that have announce their retirements, resignations or leaves of absences and contains the resolution which authorizes the further reduction of the work.
  3. Certified Staff - This is a list of all the certified staff members that are being recommended for rehire with their salaries( I was happy to see some names that I am familiar with and disappointed in not seeing others)
  4. Tenured Transfers Reassignments - A list of tenured teachers, guidance counselors and CST's that have been transferred to other schools or who have had their positions within the school district reassigned
  5. Superintendent Compensation Freeze - Superintendent Karen Bilbao has forgone her contracted raise for the upcoming year and due to the recent change in state law will be contributing 1.5% of her salary towards health benefits. Currently Bilbao contributes $1,200 towards her benefits, that will now increase by $463 for a total of $1,663 inwhich she will have to pay towards her benefits.
I have to give the Board of Education some kudos here because unlike the Gerry Scharfenberger and the Township Committee, in a true showing of transparency, the BoE released the revised budget with all of the important information that pertains to it before their open public meeting tonight. By doing so, the BoE has allowed those interested in their child's education to see how the additional cuts to the budget will effect them and then allow those parents a chance to speak informatively at the meeting.

The Board of Education should also be commended at this time for not presenting a "doomsday" budget even though funds are tight and the budget is bare-bones, I didn't see anything about the need to cut sports programs or extracurricular activities at this time, which is a good thing. But we'll have to wait it out to be sure.




MIDDLETOWN — The Board of Education will vote on the final school budget numbers at its 7:30 p.m. meeting Wednesday night in the auditorium of High School North, 63 Tindall Road.

As part of a more than $2 million reduction ordered by the Township Council, $150,000 will be through a change in nursing services; $803,000 will be through a change to the district's health insurance carrier; $58,117 savings came from the elimination of a night watchman position; $136,796 through reductions to individual school budgets; $250,000 was saved through salary breakage related to six retirements; $140,000 through attrition; and $16,204 through the elimination of a PR position.

Administrative position cuts suggested by the council do not appear on the final cuts — the council had suggested the elimination of two vice principal positions at the high schools, for a savings of $130,000 each, the elimination of an assistant business administrator position for a savings of $91,000, and the elimination of a $126,000 director position.

The final numbers will have a 2.2 percent increase on township taxes, according to the agenda....

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read through the comments from residents above. About 30% were requesting administrative cuts to reduce the budge. I can't believe the school board will disregard the township committee and public sentiment and do whatever they please. I guess it is their money to waste as they see fit.

Anonymous said...

Those people and you obviously don't have a clue about how more administration cuts will effect our schools.
Public sentiment has been politically driven by the Mayor. I've heard him say a lot of comments regarding cutting adminstration are from people who are just uniformed.
It sounds good but will have dire consequences. Be carefull what you wish for.
I don't feel it's a waste of my money to keep our students safe and well educated.

Anonymous said...

As stated many times, if you eliminate an administrative position and that person is tenured the person moves to a lower position. The only savings is the difference between the 2 positions. So the Mayor's decision to eliminate 3 vice principals costing $130,000 is not going to save $390.000. This again show his ignorance and lack of leadership. He would have found this out if he discussed it with the BOE before his grand performance at the TC meeting.

Disgusted Resident said...

This mayor is nothing more than a political hack !!

Leave the handling of finances to those with the knowledge and experience to do the job. The professionals that are hired by the people in this town to do the job. The results will be far more desirable !!

One need only look at the MESS that is the TC budget to understand the hypocrisy that prevails on the TC.

Anonymous said...

The county superintendent has said that any further administrative cuts will jeopardize the district’s ability to provide an adequate education and may put the safety of the students at risk. Karen has said the same thing. Who has more knowledge about educating our children, the mayor or the educators?

When Vinnie Brand heard the email from the county superintendent read at the meeting the other night he said that he disagreed with the county superintendent and that he didn’t care what other towns are doing that we should do it better.

This guy is a pretty fast study. Wednesday was the second BOE meeting he has attended in his entire life and he already knows more than our superintendent and the county superintendent about acceptable student to administrator ratios. He said that we should cut 3 administrators as the TC suggested, even though the TC numbers had no basis in reality due to their total lack of understanding regarding the way the district operates.

Middletown has gotten what it wished for. We now have 3 new members on the board who apparently are so concerned about doing the bidding of the Township Committee that they are willing to compromise the safety of the students in order to save the taxpayers a few dollars.

Because the TC did not realize that the tenured administrators will have to be employed somewhere in the district, they grossly overstated the savings to the taxpayers. Instead of the $390,000 that they claimed would be saved by eliminating 3 administrators, the actual savings would be more like $50,000. In other words, for less than $1 per person a year for every person living in Middletown, Vinnie and his friends are willing to ignore the warnings of professional educators and compromise the safety of our students.

We now have inexperienced, uninformed and misguided people deciding the future of the districts educational process. They are ignoring the code of ethics for BOE members which states that they are to make their decisions based on what is best for the children. They appear to be making decisions based on political affiliations and aspirations.

Disgusted Resident said...

The Middletown TC is comprised of republican politically motivated hacks and now we have three hacks on the BOE ,thanks to this mayor and a BOE member who has alligned herself with this gang of hacks!

Don't envy the job of the other BOE members who do serve in the best interest of education in this community. Politics has no place on the BOE and the TC ignores this,trying to place financial blame on the BOE for all that's wrong in town instead of looking in the mirror and seeing just how incompetent they,themselves, are in all financial matters they,the TC, handle .

The solution to some of this is to GET RID OF GERARD SCHARFENBERGER this year and PAM BRIGHTBILL and TONY FIORE next year. They do not belong in government. TOO SELF SERVING for the people of this town. We can do better and should waste no time doing it!! It's not about politics,it's about doing WHAT IS RIGHT that affects every resident of this township, regardless of political affiliation.

It's long past time...long,long past time!!

Anonymous said...

If the BOE can get rid of superintendents that violate the law and ethical standards,they can get rid of members who violate those ethical and legal standards also!

Just give "em time,these three clucks will hang themselves and take the unethical persons on the TC with them.