Summit School District Announces New Budget, Tax Levy Increase

SUMMIT, NJ — At last week's Summit Board of Education meeting to approve the 2022-2023 budget, the board's vice president broke down all the key numbers, including an increase on the district tax levy.

The district's budget meeting was held on Tuesday, March 14 after being pushed back because state aid figures had not yet been received. For the 2023 fiscal year, Vice President Michael Colon said the budget will total to about $80 million.

This will result in a tax levy of about $69 million, which is 1.84 percent increase over last year.

Colon explained that the district has a 2 percent cap on the tax levy, and the latest increase is slightly under what the district is allowed to propose under state law.

This tax levy increased about $1.2 million since the previous year, and Colon said this amount is a large portion of how the budget in Summit funded.

In the breakdown of the budget, Colon said the district received an almost $680K increase in state aid from the previous year, and the majority of this increase will go toward special education costs.

Colon also explained that the district will use around $1.7 million of its capital reserve funds to pay for several capital projects moving forward, including Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) upgrades at the high school, as well as district engineering and architect fees.

"This also helps to save the taxpayers money because we don't have to go out for a referendum for these projects, nor do we have to raise taxes in our budget because we have this money left over from prior years that we are able to 'squirrel away,'" Colon said.

The district's fund balance — essentially an in-house savings account — consists of about $2.5 million. Colon said this is a surplus that the district can use on future tax savings.

Typically, the fund balance is allowed to be set at 2 percent, according to the state, but Colon said the state has allowed the district to increase the balance to 4 percent because of the pandemic.

In summary, Colon showed that there was no increase in transportation and security aid from state funding. However, there was the increase in $679K in special education aid and $249K in debt service aid, which will be turned over to the City to pay off prior bonds.

Colon then showed a slide that broke down the district's expenditures by category. He said salaries across the district combined with insurance equate to about 84 percent of the budget.

The remaining money is split up between facilities and capital projects, special education tuition, transportation, textbooks, technical services, administration and athletic fees.

Following the presentation and some discussion, the board voted and unanimously approved the resolution, which included the budget approval, withdrawing $1.7 million from the capital reserve for the high school HVAC project and withdrawing $155K from the maintenance reserve for flooring and video surveillance work at the elementary schools.

The proposed budget will also have a public hearing on March 28 at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall.

To view the full budget meeting, watch the YouTube video below:

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