Preliminary School Budget Vote Slated for Tuesday Night

Board of Education members will vote on a preliminary budget Tuesday night before submitting it to the county superintendent this week.

In the $208 million 2013-14 Toms River schools budget, $141,838,236 is to be raised by local property taxes, an increase of 1.9 percent over the 2012-13 spending plan, the district has said. Board members will give the budget a vote before sending it to the Ocean County Superintendent by March 7 during the 7:30 p.m. meeting at in the High School North auditorium.

The spending plan is a "maintenance budget," in that it keeps staffing and program levels stable, administrators have said during a series of preliminary budget hearings held last week. 

The district will receive an additional $433,802 in state aid for its 2013-14 budget, a figure that came as a disappointment.

"It certainly was not what we were hoping for," Doering said during a public budget meeting last week. The district will receive a total of $67,712,061 in aid, a 0.6 percent increase over the current amount, according to the state.

Because of Superstorm Sandy, the county has set a projected date of April 15 for finalizing ratable bases, Doering said last week during the first of two budget meetings this week. Toms River officials have said that the township's ratables base may have lost 20 percent because of damage caused by Sandy, which may impact the distribution of school taxes among it and Beachwood, Pine Beach and South Toms River. 

"Usually when we roll out a budget we have all of the ratable base information for the constituent municipalities and we roll out what the tax impact will be," Doering has said. 

When the budget is approved on March 21 during a 7:30 p.m. public hearing at High School North, the Board of Education will not know the tax breakdown.

"We won't be able to present what the final impact is," Doering has said. "That's a huge issue for not just us, but for other towns that have that problem."

Information regarding expenditures and revenues is available in PDF form in this article's media box.