The Colts Neck School District Attemps To Navigate The Fiscal Swamp Called "New Jersey"

Fighting over money will destroy a family. It's not much different in a community as school districts across New Jersey struggle with the looming cuts in fiscal aid.

The Colts Neck school district faces one of its greatest challenges since I moved into town 16 years ago: How to maintain the quality of education and retain its best-and-brightest teachers. As a budget vote nears on April 20th there are four stakeholders affected by the declining pool of money:

• School administrators who are non-union employees.
• Teachers who are unionized (and also non-unionized support personnel like aides and secretaries).
• Property taxpayers and Colts Neck homeowners.
• Students and families.

The district's administrators have announced a forfeiture of their pay raise for the coming year, a giveback of approximately $40,000. Some residents believe Colts Neck is "top heavy" with management.

The New Jersey teachers' union, in turn, faces increasing pressure from Governor Christie's administration to renegotiate its employment contract, pension and health care plans. The new Colts Neck school budget -- to comply with state mandate -- includes a reduction in staff. Click here for an analysis of the staff reduction.

No conscientious parent of a student wants to see a teacher lose a job.

For New Jersey taxpayers a school budget is the only referendum available to vote on property taxes. In 2005 the National Association of Homebuilders' study cited New Jersey as "[t]he state with the highest median real estate taxes, where more than 50% of all households pay more than $5,352 in property taxes per home."

New Jersey property taxes are pushing our senior citizens out-of-state. Shameful since these folks paid into the system, educated their children and now can't afford to stay in the Garden State for their retirement years.

Another myth is that empty-nesters vote school budgets down since the property tax increase hits them the hardest. As a Realtor I don't see that strategy here; I see senior citizens proud of the school district they helped build. Many are belt-tightening to fund their neighbor's education.

Colts Neck enjoys a proactive Parent Teacher Organization and exceptional teachers. Several parents and families volunteer their time to assist classroom teachers with large projects, fairs, trips and academic programs -- anywhere from Art Appreciation to the Drama Club.

The recession has uncovered two tectonic forces in polar opposition.

• First, the contraction of the private sector as companies have shed jobs, divested operations, out-sourced or relocated altogether. The falloff in revenues translates to a falloff in taxes.

• Second, the swelling ranks of government employees due to over-expansion, wasteful legislation and political party patronage has created an untenable formula. The private sector might as well quit than support mushrooming state and local government.

• The shakedown effect of this macro-economic collision hits small suburbs, non-Abbot school districts like Colts Neck, which threatens to rend the cooperation between all four stakeholder groups, a collaboration that took decades of human and capital investment to foster.

As a Key Communicator of the Colts Neck Administration I will be posting several blogs about the budget and the vote. (Click here to access a Wikapedia on the Colts Neck School Distrct.) As one Colts Neck "family" member, I don't want to fight about money.

***Note: I do not represent the Colts Neck school district nor am I member of the Board of Ed. I state my views as a concerned citizen.