Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Charter School Costs Now 10 Percent of Budget

The expected closing of Central Jersey Arts School brings up some general thoughts on charter school costs.

Since the 2008-09 school year, the allocation for charter schools nearly doubled and is almost the amount of the entire local school tax levy that was in effect from 1992 to 2007. In 2008-09, it was $8,238,249 and for 2014-15, it had grown to $17,237,842, or 10 percent of the budget. Until state-mandated increases in the amount of the local tax levy, it had been unchanged at $17,683,906 for fifteen years. As of this school year's budget presentation, the local portion of the total school budget is $31,114,411, or 17 percent, and the state still contributes the greatest amount, $143,779,771, or 80 percent.

The city only has four charter schools, but the 2014-15 budget indicates attendance at nine charter schools with transportation provided for 353 students.

With the change to November school elections, the public no longer votes on the budget, but may comment at a public hearing. According to the agenda for the March 17 business meeting, the tentative budget for 2015-16 totals $188,240,923, including $23,958,938 to be raised in local taxes. The date for the public hearing is May 5.

The budget is still passed in the spring for the coming school year, though new board members now come on as of Jan. 1, in the middle of the school year.

I regret very much that I am unable to cover school board meetings in addition to municipal government and land use board meetings. The initial blog, Plainfield Plaintalker, includes many posts on school matters, but the successor, Plaintalker II, does not. A 2013 post on the school budget may have been the last, and it included a plea, still unanswered, for someone to take up school board coverage.

--Bernice

2 comments:

  1. I found some of these numbers hard to follow so if I may I'll restate some of them. According to the agendas of the school board business agendas in the month of March, 2014 and 2015 respectively, the proposed budgets to be submitted to the state were/are:

    2014-15 total = 184MM/ "to be raised by taxes" 24MM
    2015-16 total = 188MM/ "to be raised by taxes" 24MM

    Note that later, in the official budget presentation for 2014-15, the total is restated as 179MM including 31MM from "local" sources. How "local" relates to "taxes" I have no clue. Perhaps someone who understands the school budget process can explain.

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  2. Revenues from "local sources" are the larger category. A component is what you see as "raised by taxes" or will appear in the budget as "local tax levy". Other categories of local sources include things such as shared revenue from school lunch programs (if your school outsources that function), debt payments, and fees received from sending districts if your district receives students placed from outside. The largest component is always the amount raised by taxes. However, in the case of Plainfield, the amount of aid received from the state based on the Abbot court decision is far in excess of the money raised by the local tax levy.

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