Evesham school district taxes up slightly, but brace for the future.

Property tax bills in Evesham would rise slightly under a tentative 2020-21 budget approved Tuesday evening by the Evesham Township School District. But that relatively good news could change for the worse in coming years.

A homeowner with a town-wide average assessment of $271,600 would pay about $12.74 more a year in township school district taxes, up less than a half percent from the comparable tax bill in 2019-20. 

The largest part of the overall property tax bill — about 42% — in Evesham goes to pay for the Evesham district, according to state data. With Lenape Regional added, schools take more than two-thirds of property tax collections in town.

While the district managed to avoid cutting staff or programs under this budget, Business Administrator John Recchinti told the board, "it's going to be a challenging next couple of years, for sure."

New Jersey is reallocating state aid for schools and Evesham is one that's facing deep cuts in coming years. State aid to Evesham is about $12.16 million this school year. That will dip to about $10.77 million in the 2020-21 tentative budget and the aid will continue to fall, dipping to about $6.12 million by the 2024-25 school year, according to Recchinti's projections.

"They're not giving us enough time to overcome the money they're taking from us," he told the board.

Education is labor-intensive, and that's reflected in all school budgets. In Evesham's tentative budget, all salaries consumes about 62% of the budget appropriations and employees benefits takes nearly 20%.

Special education (nearly 5%) and operations/transportation (more than 5%) are other large spending areas.

The proposed budget, which now goes to the Burlington County Superintendent of Schools Office (part of the state Education Department), includes these highlights:

• Total proposed tax levy is $63,673,450, up nearly 4% from this school year.
• Total revenue is $79,648,412, up nearly 3% from this school year. 
• The 2020 tax rate would be $1.1838 per $100 assessed value compared with $1.1791 in this year's budget.
• This year, money was not withdrawn from the district's capital reserve, but $671,500 would be used in the proposed budget. A big capital project is replacing Marlton Middle School's fire alarm system, Recchinti told the board.
• Costs of clubs and activities would have risen, but the district has imposed higher fees on students. One board member was concerned about students who cannot afford an activity. A school official said the district does not exclude a given student from activities because he or she cannot afford to pay.
• Projected revenues equal appropriations under the tentative budget because the school is using its 2% cap and a banked cap of 3.54%. If there were no tax levy increase, the district would face a $2.13 million shortfall.