Ridgewood Voters Approve $111M School Budget

RIDGEWOOD, NJ — Voters approved the school district's nearly $111.7 million 2019-20 school budget Tuesday.

The votes were 1,342 "yes" votes and 1,131 "no" votes. The totals include absentee ballots cast. The results are unofficial until certified by the Bergen County Clerk's Office sometime next week, said village Administrator and Clerk Heather Mailander.

The budget includes a $96 million tax levy, the portion of the budget funded by local taxes, and a $174 tax increase for a home valued at $702,000, the average in Ridgewood.

Only 2,473 registered voters cast ballots this year, or 14 percent of the 18,262 registered voters in Ridgewood.

About $77 million of the budget will fund salaries and benefits.

Included in the budget is $1.6 million for technology, which includes replacing aging computers, Chromebooks, and projects. The fund will also be used to maintain hardware to "keep up with modern day educational techniques and software requirements."

Also budgeted is $1.65 million to renovate four bathrooms at Benjamin Franklin and George Washington middle schools, replacing the stadium turf field at the high school, repaving parking lots throughout the district, and repairing the Benjamin Franklin pole vault and javelin area

The budget includes curriculum studies of the kindergarten through fifth grade language arts program, including new classroom library books, the sixth through 12th grade math curriculum, including the renewal e-textbooks licenses, and two new junior high and high school courses.

All academic courses, including 26 Advanced Placement classes, five world languages, 29 high school varsity sports, and more than 100 activities will continue if the budget is approved.

Ridgewood is just one of 13 districts statewide with a budget vote. The vote was taken away from residents in 2013 when the school board moved school elections to November, until the Village Council restored the vote last summer.

Voters only decided on the budget and not the next member of the school board. That election will not occur until the spring of 2020. The school district filed a complaint in court, who pushed the election date back to next year.

Email: daniel.hubbard@patch.com