A grant and a purchase of surplus land by Evesham Township would mean Evesham schools will not have to eliminate some courtesy busing or ask voters for extra money to pay for on-site police officers for next school year.
The township's intervention targets two of the more painful issues that the school district faces as it cuts its 2021-22 budget in response to a 16% reduction in state aid. One of the more contentious cuts discussed at the meeting was the proposed elimination of benefits for the district's paraprofessionals.
Evesham Township Board of Education members on Thursday night voted 8-1 to pass the tentative budget, which is due to the county Office of Education on March 22. The adoption of the final budget is scheduled for May 6. Melissa Fleming was the sole board member to vote against the budget.
The tentative budget includes a property tax levy of $63,572,732, up 2% from $62,326,208 this year for the general fund. The tax rate would rise to $1.2013 for every $100 in assessed value compared with $1.1838 this year. Based on the average residential assessment of $271,900 in Evesham, the annual school tax bill would rise to $3,266 from $3,219.
Over a seven-year period, state aid to Evesham Township School District will have been reduced by $7,897,421. The largest one-year reduction is for the 2021-22 budget, which is now being prepared.
Evesham Superintendent Justin Smith reported Thursday night that the township has said it would purchase wooded land the school district has owned for decades in the Cambridge Park and Country Farms neighborhoods and designate the acreage as open space. The land had been set aside for future school construction, school officials told 70and73.com in the past.
"The details are still being worked out through discussion with the township," Smith said at the budget meeting. Money from the sale would be used to provide busing for an estimated 360 students who would have lost transportation next school year, Smith said.
And the district's seven police, or school resource, officers would be covered by a township grant and the district will not have to ask residents to vote on whether to spend $262,500 for the officers, school officials said. The Township Council in February voted to set up a special fund — financed by developers' payments in lieu of taxation — to assist the school and fire districts in public safety projects.
"That is a gracious offer from them," board President Joe Fisicaro said of the township's offer to buy excess land. "We've been trying to get that property off our hands forever." The district last March offered the 15 acres of Cambridge Park land for sale and got no bidders.
Smith said this school year has "been a rather dark year in a lot of ways" and that the township's grant and offer to buy vacant land were great points of light. "We are grateful to Mayor (Jaclyn) Veasy, Deputy Mayor (Heather) Cooper our whole Town Council, Town Manager (Robert) Corrales and others for that news provided to us," Smith said at the meeting.
The district, which has 4,221 students, is proposing a $77,882,682 budget next year, down $1,773,724, or 2%, from $79,656,406 this year. State aid is projected to decline $1,763,678 in the coming school year, the greatest reduction in seven years of reductions that will total $7,897,421 by the 2024-25 school year.
» MORE: Busing cuts, staff reductions required in Evesham school district next year.
Much of the public comment at the meeting came from paraprofessionals, or teachers supporting paraprofessionals, who challenged the district for its plan to eliminate benefits.
Medical, dental and prescription benefits for paraprofessionals would be eliminated beginning next January. That amounts to about $1.6 million annual savings — the average cost of annual benefits for a paraprofessional is $25,000, which is well above the average annual wage of between $20,000 and $21,000, Smith told 70and73.com in an interview earlier this week. The employees contribute $1,250 toward the benefit cost each year.
"Will you be able to sleep at night knowing that you were a part of the decision that took health care from these folks?" Debbie VanCuren, president of the Evesham Township Education Association, the union representing professionals and staff, asked the board members. "Taking benefits from people is deplorable."
Lucia Millington of Bancroft Road, a paraprofessional at Marlton Middle School, told the board that when she was hired 22 years ago the package included benefits. "I'm three years from retirement. I will never have that security that I've been working for for 22 years," she said.
"We are the core," she said. "We might be at the bottom, but we're the core of the education system. We do a lot. It's just not fair to take this away from us."
Last October, shorter hours worked by paraprofessionals because of COVID-19 prompted the school administration to announce a benefit cut for paraprofessionals. However, after shifting the hours, the benefits were not cut.
John Recchinti, the district's business administrator and school board secretary, at Thursday's meeting asserted that the Evesham Township Education Association was misrepresenting to its membership that the district is "hiding money."
"There are no hidden surpluses," Recchinti said. "There's no hidden money. It's all right there, black and white," he said during a presentation of the line items that made up the total $5.6 million fund balance, based on an outside audit for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2020. The balance includes surpluses, emergency and maintenance reserves and other sources.
Other information from the board's budget meeting:
- Smith said he has learned the school district will get about $900,000 from the newly passed federal stimulus package. But, he said, the administration will need time to look at the funding in light of the budget.
- Although positions are being cut to save money, not every cut means someone loses a job. The district expects to realize $1,783,298 from cutting 23 professional staff positions, but 11 will come from vacancies or retirements. The budget also calls for eliminating 22 paraprofessionals and support staff and 21 of the positions will come from vacancies or retirements. That cut will mean $1,243,466 in savings.
- The largest increase in the budget will be for special education. The tentative spending for special education would be $4,313,583, up 15.5% from this year. The main reason it's going up is because the district is projecting additional students in the program.
- Another growth area was operations/transportation, which was up 8.8% to $4,707,590. Board member Janis Knoll said Hillman's Bus Service historically has been the only busing bidder and increased its rates 25% last year and 10% the year before. She called for the board to explore ways to reduce reliance on the private bus company.
- Knoll said she had major concerns about the budgets in the next two years. "I don't like kicking the can down the road," she said. "We need to make smart choices now to reduce costs."
- One reason for declining state aid is shrinking enrollment. The district enrollment peaked at 5,436 in 2002-03. This year's enrollment of 4,221 is down more than 5% from last year.
