Hazlet BOE To Vote On Tax Levy Incentive Aid At Special Meeting

HAZLET, NJ — The Hazlet Board of Education will hold a vote at a special meeting on Monday to apply for the state’s tax levy incentive aid, which would raise taxes $1.5 million of the available $5 million in efforts to address ongoing budget challenges, Superintendent Scott Ridley said.

The special meeting follows a recent announcement from Ridley about Hazlet’s school’s 2025-26 budget.

According to Ridley, the district contracted an external vendor to study the schools’ transportation routes, but the vendor made a miscalculation in how much the schools stood to save by eliminating courtesy busing.

Instead of saving $800,000, Ridley said the district would only save $200,000, requiring them to find an additional $600,000 to balance the budget.

According to Ridley, school districts across the county and state have been “sabotaged by an ineffective funding formula” that has forced a majority of districts to “raise taxes, sell property, eliminate courtesy busing and make drastic adjustments to their budgetary process.”

On Monday (April 7) and Thursday, the board met in no-action-taken meetings to discuss available options moving forward.

One of these options is applying for a one-time tax levy of $5 million, Ridley said.

The Hazlet School District is one of the 20 districts in Monmouth County that qualifies as under-adequacy/below local fair share and was granted the opportunity to apply for this levy to address shortfalls.

Sensitive to the needs of the community, Ridley said the board discussed “at length” the most effective way to serve the school district while minimizing the impact on homeowners, and said the board is prioritizing what’s fundamentally important to students’ education.

On Monday at 6 p.m. (the state’s official deadline to apply), the board will meet in the Raritan High School auditorium and vote to slightly raise taxes $1.5 million dollars of the available $5 million, Ridley said, equating roughly to $500/year for a home valued at $600,000.

The funds will be used to address the following:

• Restore courtesy busing for the year to come
• Add two school counselors for the lower grades
• Add two targeted reading teachers for the lower grades
• Add one basic skills teacher for the 5-6 schools
• Add a teacher to Raritan Valley School to lower class size
• Add a teacher to Middle Road School to lower class size
• Hire a special education teacher to serve this important population

“With these changes in place, the board will serve the district’s crucial needs with minimal impact on the community,” Ridley said.

Information on the vote and next steps will be shared again at the board’s regularly scheduled April 28th meeting.

To see the full video from Superintendent Ridley, you can click here. To read the video transcript, you can click here.

Raritan High School is located at 419 Middle Road, Hazlet.

Related

• Special Meeting Set For Hazlet Board Of Education
• Hazlet Schools To Consider Applying For New Tax Levy Incentive Aid
• Hazlet Schools To Eliminate Some Bus Routes For 2025-26 School Year