Key Fair Haven BOE Budget Facts

With eight residents in attendance and little criticism, the Fair Haven Board of Education adopted its $12.3 million budget at a special meeting Wednesday night.

The budget, which represents a $240,397 hike in spending from last year, held the line right at the state-mandated 2 percent levy cap.

It translates into an increase in the Fair Haven schools portion of the tax bill of roughly $137 a year for a property assessed at the borough's average of $650,000.

Broken down, the Fair Haven Board of Education tax rate is now, for the 2013-14 school year at 21.08 per $100,000 of assessed property value. Last year the rate was $17.11. The hike is $3.97 per $100,000.

There was no increase in spending on programs for the district, because "there just was no money to do so," Superintendent Kathleen Cronin said.

The board was asked about how they intend to handle the overcrowding and space problem at Viola L. Sickles School. Board President Claudia Brasch said that it is a critical issue that would require major expense and would most likely have to be addressed in the form of a referendum put to a public vote.

"We don't want to come up with a plan (for construction) unless we feel confident it will pass (voter discretion)," she said.

Cronin noted that a few years ago, budgets were not passing due to the economic strain and if a referendum is put out for a vote and fails, it cannot come back to voters in the same form again. The economy, board members said, has not made enough of a comeback yet for the confidence level they'd want on such a vote.

Board member Katy Badt-Frissora said that every option has been looked into, including converting closets, installing trailers and moving some classes to Knollwood, and nothing has yet been ruled out.

There was a small decrease in the Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School District portion of the schools tax bill.

Some interesting budget facts:

• Salaries account for roughly $5.4 million of the spending plan or 42 percent of the total budget, with about $2.8 million spent in benefits, or 21 percent of the total budget;

• Salary costs went up 1.5 percent this year, and benefits increased by 1.7 percent;

• Instructional support costs went down nearly 19 percent, from 693,015 to 561,698, a decrease of $131,317;

• State aid decreased this year, from 404,094 last year to 378,253 this year.