Our View Shore Regional is not the problem Pity the poor Sea Bright property taxpayers. They carry what people keep telling them is an outsized burden to support the Shore Regional High School District, and worse, foot the bill for their own inept and inefficient municipal government. This week the Sea Bright Borough Council’s three-member committee reviewing Shore Regional’s budget took steps to make what it has to know is an untenable cut to Shore Regional’s proposed 2003-04 budget. In case you missed it, the committee appears ready to suggest something along the lines of a $3 million cut to the roughly $11 million budget. The fact that their suggested cuts do not have the slightest chance of occurring does not appear to be an issue. Rather than attempt to maximize the value of their input by seeking a reasonable number, they are planning to go forward with something that could get them laughed out of Trenton. It seems pretty likely that the state will cut more than $50,000 from Shore Regional’s budget, as proposed by West Long Branch, but rest assured, it will be much closer to that number than the $3 million Sea Bright is floating. While putting this sure loser before the state, Mayor Gregory Harquail has come up with a longer-term proposal that is every bit as assured of failure. Even the name — "pay to play" — is a sure loser. Hasn’t he been paying attention to what is going on in this state? Harquail says his "pay to play" proposal is the only solution he can see to lessen the burden on Sea Bright taxpayers. Well, here is another one, and it is far more certain to have the desired effect. Get rid of Sea Bright. The mayor blames Shore Regional for stingingly high property taxes in the borough, but a quick look at the numbers shows that the borough itself is really responsible. The owner of a home assessed at $300,000 in Sea Bright paid a total of $8,529; in Oceanport the figure was $8,586 and in Monmouth Beach the amount was $8,820. West Long Branch residents got away with the smallest bill, $7,383. To hear Sea Bright officials, you would think that all of that difference comes from Shore Regional, but a look at the breakdown of the tax rate reveals the real culprit. To support the regional high school, the Sea Bright homeowner pays $1,665; in Oceanport the tab is $1,677; and in Monmouth Beach the price tag is $1,941. Once again, West Long Branch comes in at the bottom with a bill of $1,440. Obviously the $265 difference between Sea Bright and West Long Branch does not explain the $1,146 difference in their total tax bill, so there has to be something else. That something else, and much more, is municipal taxes. Last year a Sea Bright resident paid $3,747 in taxes to the municipality. His counterpart in West Long Branch paid $1,419 — a whopping $2,328 less. Suddenly, a couple of hundred dollars extra to Shore Regional seems like a bargain. If Sea Bright were to become part of Rumson, it could do away with the significant overhead associated with running a town That would save a lot more than any reduction in its Shore Regional taxes.