{"id":15729,"date":"2019-12-13T02:20:23","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T07:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=15729"},"modified":"2019-12-13T03:44:18","modified_gmt":"2019-12-13T08:44:18","slug":"bricks-tax-doomsday-will-residents-face-a-19-school-tax-hike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2019\/12\/bricks-tax-doomsday-will-residents-face-a-19-school-tax-hike\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick’s Tax Doomsday: Will Residents Face a 19% School Tax Hike?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A row of lockers at Brick Township High School. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Cuts to school funding on the part of the state have already resulted in larger class sizes, staff layoffs and \u2013 decided Thursday night \u2013 the demise of Herbertsville Elementary School<\/a> except for preschool classes.<\/p>\n

District officials warned that it is likely a second school will close in the coming five school years, each of which will have its funding reduced by more than $4 million until a permanent $22 million cut is applied. The cuts are a product of S-2, a bill that was signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy as part of an agreement with state Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester). For taxpayers, the district is legally obligated to raise taxes to the maximum allowed by law, 2 percent, each year for seven years. But even those tax hikes will not recoup all of the funding lost from the state. That\u2019s where things get scary.<\/p>\n

James Edwards, the district\u2019s business administrator, went over the potential costs of a bill that is gaining steam in the state legislature. Instead of restoring funding to districts like Brick, the state may allow the districts to simply ignore the cap and raise local property taxes to the equivalent amount of money being cut.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve arrived at the idea that we\u2019re a wealthy community and they want to give us the ability to raise taxes,\u201d said Edwards. \u201cBelieve me, it\u2019s not what I\u2019d prefer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The board would not be obligated by law to raise taxes under the legislation, but officials may not be left with a choice if class sizes balloon to well over 30 students, sports programs are cut and staff is let go. In the worst-case scenario of township taxpayers absorbing the entire $22 million cut within their property tax bills, school taxes would rise by a staggering 18.97 percent.<\/p>\n

For the owner of a home worth $295,100, the township average, taxes would instantly rise by $603. Owners of homes worth more than the average would see even higher increases on scale.<\/p>\n

The worst part, besides the bill: \u201cThat does not get us where we need to be for 2021 because there\u2019s no accounting of increased costs,\u201d Edwards said, explaining that raising taxes by $22 million would only recoup the current level of state aid and would not cover general cost increases such as salaries and benefits, equipment, building maintenance and other factors.<\/p>\n

Brick requested emergency aid from the state to stem the tide of budget slashing, but was fully denied, being offered $0. Ironically, the stated reason for denial was the district\u2019s efficiency in spending. Brick has one of the lowest per-pupil costs for administration in the state, Edwards said. Also, the state denied the aid based on the fact that Brick\u2019s school district had a balanced budget this year \u2013 but the budget must be balanced by law, and it took more than 60 staff reductions to find that balance. Also, the state did not look kindly on the fact that some money was dedicated to building maintenance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn their view we should have just put it toward the operating [budget],\u201d Edwards said.<\/p>\n

Acting Superintendent Sean Cranston said he was planning on getting more active online and with legislators to make Brick\u2019s case. He urged members of the community to use the hashtag #SaveBrickSchools on social media and send tweets to Murphy, Sweeney and the state education commissioner Lamont Repollet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one little thing, but if we blow up his account, maybe he won\u2019t read it, but someone will read it,\u201d said Cranston. \u201cWe\u2019re a big community \u2013 we control a lot of Ocean County.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lingering question is, if the state does pass the bill, would Brick\u2019s Board of Education members utilize it to raise taxes?<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a hard time talking about a significant tax increase without having a reason why,\u201d said Board President Stephanie Wohlrab. \u201cTo date I haven\u2019t seen a formula that states we\u2019re below adequacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state has refused to turn over its funding formula, claiming the formula is proprietary. Brick is pursuing litigation that would force the state to turn over the data, and northern Ocean County\u2019s members of the state Senate and Assembly have sponsored a bill mandating that the formula be made public. The bill has not seen movement since it was proposed.<\/p>\n

In the short term, changes are coming to the Brick district above and beyond the end of traditional classes at Herbertsville School.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we have an AP class with seven kids in it, we\u2019re not going to be running it next year,\u201d said Cranston.<\/p>\n

Also, \u201c30 to 32 children in a classroom is going to be the norm,\u201d said Susan McNamara, Director of Planning, Research and Evaluation for the district. Officials are also looking into offering large, lecture-style history classes.<\/p>\n

Rumblings in Trenton suggest the bill allowing taxes to be raised beyond the cap is being \u201cfast tracked,\u201d said Edwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe solution the state is coming up with is, \u2018raise your local taxes,'\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cuts to school funding on the part of the state have already resulted in larger class sizes, staff layoffs and \u2013 decided Thursday night \u2013 the demise of Herbertsville Elementary School except for preschool classes. District officials warned that it is likely a second school will close in the coming five school years, each of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[24,593,3904,921,3903,2870],"class_list":["post-15729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-schools","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-brick-township-schools","tag-funding-cut","tag-property-taxes","tag-s-2","tag-school-tax"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/IMG_9996.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-45H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}