Middletown School Budget Approved

Both the Independent and Middletown Patch have articles posted online  about the new budget for the Middletown school system.

On February 29th, a special meeting of the Middletown Board of Education(BOE) took place to introduce and propose the 2012-2013 Tentative School Budget.

According to both articles the school budget will increase by .98%, which would equate to roughly $2.6 million or about $46 a year on median homes assessed at $376,800.

In keeping this years tax rate increase so low, the BOE has the $851,000 increase in state aid to thank. Otherwise the tax increase would have been larger or more services or teaching positions may have need to be eliminated in order to stay below the state mandated 2% budget cap.

Instead, according to both the Independent and Middletown Patch, the BOE is using the increase in state aid to offset class size with additional teachers and another student services supervisor and provide for numerous curricular enhancements, including academic labs for high school students, which seems on the surface to be good things. But of course, like anything else, the devil is in the details and people should read through the budget before forming opinions, which at this point I have not done as of yet, but intend to do so.

In the mean time, on the surface this budget seems pretty good, but how it will effect the school system and the Township moving forward in the use of deferred taxes (which no one wants to address) will be interesting.

Many (not all) municipalities in NJ defer school taxes to help offset their own tax rate increases and at some point must return those taxes back to the school system. Some municipalities return the money to the local school systems promptly while others such as Middletown do not. Middletown currently owes its BOE over $60M in deferred taxes, the ramifications of which could be felt if the BOE needs to exceed the State's 2% cap mandate in the future.