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Ball to the Township Council... The ball is now in the court of the Readington Township Council. The voters having rejected the proposed school budget, the Township Council is charged with determining the next step. What is possible now? The Township Council can reduce the proposed budget, approve it as is, or even raise the amount of tax dollars available to the school district. The last option is exceedingly rare in recent memory. Most common in New Jersey today is a token cut of some sort by the municipal government in question, unless the voters defeated the school budget by some large number. Last year in Readington, a large margin of defeat and a bitter and personal battle of wills between school district and township representatives made for a show of fireworks which resulted in a significant cut of $720K. This year the margin of defeat is not so great but there are other political issues to consider. The Readington Township Council has other political balls in play. There is a potentially grisly ballot-box fight coming between existing council members running for re-election and challengers who will be sparring over the decades-old Solberg Airport issue. As if that were not distraction enough, township residents will be voting on May 16 on a $22 million bond issue giving the council authority to raise money to pursue a specific agenda on the airport. From the chambers of the Town Council, these issues coming over the net into their court must look like the result of a crazed ball serving machine gone haywire. Can these council members be expected to ask voters to approve a bond referendum, accept something close to the original school budget, and to re-elect them? That might require a different set of balls. Must we steel, then, for a large school budget cut on the order of the one last year? Maybe not. There are some ameliorating factors. For example, Readington is not alone. Nearly half of the school budgets in New Jersey were rejected this year. It isn’t as though Readington schools stand out like a political sore thumb. It is better understood by the public now that flat state aid, federal and state mandates, and other factors outside of school district control play the largest role in larger school budgets. State aid to Readington is only 6.95% of the budget. Five years ago it was 9.7%. Changes now in place regarding the way reserve funds must be handled are also better understood by the public. Perhaps most important, though, is the way the budget process was handled by the school district this year. Unlike the sloppy record keeping and shrill defense of pet programs that marked the process last year, the process for 2006-2007 was professional, thorough and transparent. Though angry voices decrying high spending could still be found in Letters To The Editor, such voices only showed that it is possible to put up a wall through which the efforts of public meetings, websites, mailings, backpack flyers, newspaper stories, picnics, coffees, and similar efforts cannot penetrate. A visit to a single board meeting in the five months prior to the budget vote would show any casual observer the sincere concern of board members, the professional care of staff members responsible for defending budget numbers, and the complete transparency of the process. Further, it would show that this budget is as lean as is legally possible. Some residents were up in arms over cuts made by the board even before the budget vote. Is that an indicator of a bloated budget? What heated discussions that did take place between the public and district representatives were about items that amounted to less than one percent of the overall budget—not exactly an indicator of wholesale waste. In this environment, then, perhaps the township council can find the political courage to make a token cut in the budget and to move on to other municipal issues. Certainly the district will not make the mistakes of last year when personalities and high horses got in the way of compromise. There is little doubt that every taxpayer has had it with ever-increasing bills. Yet, the Township Council could legitimately read the defeated school budget as a message to government in general and not as a lack of confidence in the management of Readington schools. Only a pathetic 23% of eligible Readington voters bothered to attend to their civic duty, and the margin was 57% “no” to 43% “yes” among those voting on the budget. It is pretty clear that this was not a rallying cry against the school district, but a mix of people passionate enough about improving Readington schools or about holding the line on taxes to spend four minutes to vote. That the other 77% of voters did not spend those four minutes could be seen as an unspoken vote for the status quo. It is anybody’s guess what will happen next. However, with the hiring of a new superintendent around the corner, with new board members about to take their seats, with a district filled halfway with recently hired teachers, and with a boatload of decisions on infrastructure already being put off another year—the decision by the township council could be the tipping point between progress or regression. |
