The High Cost of Education

The president of the Berkeley Township Taxpayers Coalition has no problem with senior citizens picking up part of the tab to run school districts.

But there's a limit, Samuel J. Cammarato told the Township Council last night.

"It's the obligation of every American citizen to chip in some portion towards education," Cammarato said. "But just because that's the way they (the state) fund education, that doesn't make it right."

Cammarato took to the microphone during the public portion of the meeting to question why so little had been cut from the defeated budgets of both the Central Regional and Berkeley Township school districts.

"If the voters went to the polls and they voted down the budget...I would think that means the school budget has to be cut," Cammarato said. "What's the sense of people going to the polls?"

After several stormy meetings, the five sending towns of the Central Regional school district last week approved $813,239 in cuts from the defeated budget. The Central Regional Board of Education will decide on Thursday night whether to accept the cuts or appeal them to the state Department of Education.

"That's only three percent," Cammarato said of the proposed cut. "That's not a heck of a lot. There are still people on the council who are opposed to that."

Both Township Council President Karen Davis and Council Vice-President Carmen J. Amato Jr. have said they reluctantly approved the cut at the request of Central Regional school officials, who fear the state Department of Education might cut even more if they appeal.

Central Regional accepts middle and high school students from Berkeley Township, Ocean Gate, Island Heights, Seaside Heights and Seaside Park. Voters in Berkeley and Seaside Park turned down the $27,489,152 tax levy portion of the $33,252,531 budget by a margin of 106 votes on April 27.

"This governing body unanimously approved the resolution to cut the $813,000,"  Amato said. "Now it's up to Central Regional to determine their course of action - whether to accept the cut or appeal it."

Seaside Park has been embroiled in lawsuits over the past several years in an attempt to withdraw from the Central Regional school district.

Seaside Park's first suggested cut of $3 million was "astronomical," Amato said.

"It would put a knife to a lot of programs," he said. "The municipalities got together and came up with $813,000 and change."

The defeated Central Regional budget already included the loss of 11 employees, including nine teachers and two buildings and grounds workers, freshman sports, home economics and other programs before it even went to the voters, Amato said.

 "Rest assured, Mr. Cammarato," Amato added.  "They (the Central Regional school board) know the budget was defeated. It's just the severity of the cut."

The Township Council cut $50,000 from the defeated Berkeley Township school district budget, which had no tax increase for the 2011-2012 school year, Davis said.

"People don't seem to understand the words fixed income," Cammarato said. "Our income is fixed. We only get so much money to live on. That's one of the reasons the seniors have been voting down the budget."

What we realy need to look at ...is the tenure part of the system," Cammarato said.

Teachersshould be rewarded and retained for superior work and decisions made to keep them on should not be based on whether they have tenure, he said.

"Some of us here have not had children going to school between 30 to 50 years," Cammarato said. "But yet we are still paying the same amount of money as someone with three or four kids.""

School budgets often fail because they are the only budget the public has a say in, Amato said.

"The only outlet they have is the school budget," he said. "We need to educate the  public. The Berkeley school district went down with no increase."

Too often voters enter the voting booth and the only words they see are "amount to be raised by taxation," which is in the millions, Amato said.

School budgets would have more of a chance of passing if the actual increase to a homeowner was also included on the ballot, Amato said.

Davis disagreed with Cammarato's contention that he was "paying for children." The problem is New Jersey's regressive schools funding formula based on property tax assessments, she said.

"That is the way schools are funded in the state of New Jersey," she said. "That's a misunderstanding people have. I would love to get it (school funding) out of the property taxes."