S.B. battling hard to cut high school budget

Officials insist students are not receiving the
education taxes pay for
By sherry conohan
Staff Writer

The Shore Regional High School Board of Education and the borough of Sea Bright are squaring off for a fight to the finish on the high school’s budget.

The budget was defeated in two of the high school’s four sending districts — Sea Bright and West Long Branch — and barely passed with a four-vote margin in Monmouth Beach, 257-253.

The overall vote on the budget — which Oceanport, the fourth district, passed comfortably by a margin of 205-162 — was 782 votes against to 729 in favor.

Paul Rolleri, an Oceanport representative on the Shore Regional board and head of its finance committee, castigated Sea Bright at the April 29 agenda meeting for its intransigence in coming to agreement on how to cut the budget.

He said he believed the other three towns were listening to the Shore Regional pitch for how to trim the budget, but Sea Bright would not go along.

"We tried to convince them," he said. "This is one of the best budgets we’ve ever had."

"The other towns are sympathetic," he added.

Rolleri told the board he was disappointed in Sea Bright’s failure to come to an agreement.

"Sea Bright, believe it or not, turns out to be our wealthiest town," he said.

Rolleri was referring to the assessed valuation of properties in Sea Bright, which is a major component of the formula now in place under state law for determining member district shares of a regional school budget.

He took offense to Sea Bright’s statements that the cost per pupil in the budget was too high.

"My opinion," he said, "is that I believe Sea Bright is using this as a platform for withdrawing from the Shore Regional High School District."

Sea Bright Mayor Gregory W. Harquail, contacted later, said Sea Bright voters demonstrated by defeating the budget that they are sick and tired of supporting the education of students from other towns.

"If you take the number of students from Sea Bright and divide that into the total enrollment, the cost per student is $15,000," he said. "But if you take the number of students from Sea Bright and divide that into the taxes paid [for the high school], we’re paying $44,500 per student."

By comparison, Oceanport is paying $10,900 per pupil, West Long Branch is paying $11,500 per pupil, and Monmouth Beach is paying $24,000 per pupil, he said.

Sea Bright sends 31 students to Shore Regional High School. Monmouth Beach sends 94 students. Oceanport has 258.5 students at the high school and West Long Branch has 321, for a total enrollment of 704.5 students.

Harquail charged that Sea Bright students are not getting the quality of education the borough is paying for.

"They are getting a good education, but not a $45,000 education," he said.

Harquail said the amount of money the borough has to pay Shore Regional is affecting the quality of life services provided by the borough. He noted that the borough has to go out to bid on other commodities.

Asked if he was seeking the freedom to accept bids from other school districts — such as Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School — to take the borough’s students, Harquail would only say that he would like to see a change in the school system wherein the bor­ough would pay a fair price for educat­ing its students.

Harquail said Sea Bright was asking for a "very, very substantial" reduction in the Shore Regional budget of $11,144,622, which requires a tax levy of $10,143,032. He maintained the bor­ough had no specific figure in mind at this time.

"It could be $800,000. It could be $2.5 million," he said.

As for the state’s formula for regional districts, he said it was unfairly based on property values which have increased tremendously in the borough.

"If, four years ago, you owned a home that cost $150,000 and it’s worth half a million dollars today, could you buy it?" he asked. "It’s (the formula) not based on personal income."

Rolleri reported that negotiations on the budget were going nowhere. An ini­tial meeting between representatives from all four districts and the board’s representatives took place the Tuesday after Easter, and another meeting oc­curred the following Monday with Monmouth County Superintendent of Schools Michael Maddaluna.

Rolleri said agreement must be reached by May 19 on budget cuts or it gets kicked over to the state Department of Education which will decide the tax levy.

The negotiators for the Shore Regional board are Rolleri; Diane Merla, president of the board, from West Long Branch; Roderick A. Petschauer of West Long Branch; and Anthony Morro of Monmouth Beach. For Sea Bright, the negotiators are Harquail and Councilmen William Gelfound and William J. Keeler; for West Long Branch, Mayor Paul Zambrano, Councilman Richard F. Cooper Jr. and William R. Deisinger; for Monmouth Beach, Mayor James P. McConville III; and for Oceanport, council President Maria Gatta. Monmouth Beach and Oceanport, as previously noted, passed the budget.

The Sea Bright Borough Council has set a meeting for 8 a.m. May 19 to dis­cuss the budget.

Each town is supposed to submit a resolution to the county superintendent by that date recommending cuts to the budget.

Harquail said the Sea Bright delega­tion went to Trenton last week for a meeting with Assistant Commissioner of Education Richard Rosenberg, the de­partment’s financial officer, in the hope he "could shed some light on the sub­ject and help Sea Bright out of its plight" but with no success.

Rolleri said there would be a meet­ing with state education officials June 11 if it comes to that.

Board Business Administrator Nicholas Cammarano said June 25 was the "extreme end" of the process.

"If any of the towns want something cut, they have to identify it," he said. "We don’t have to do that."

"We have nothing to react to," he added, "because the towns haven’t agreed on what they want to cut."

Rolleri noted the board had cut the reserve to below 3 percent and he didn’t think the budget could be cut without hurting the education provided at Shore Regional. He also pointed to low voter turnout that he said worked against the proposed budget.

The total voter turnout was 12 per­cent and ranged from a high of 19 per­cent in Monmouth Beach, where inter­est was fueled by an all-day kinder­garten question on the ballot for the bor­ough’s K-8 district, to 11 percent in West Long Branch and 9 percent in both Oceanport and Sea Bright.

Anthony Morro, the Monmouth Beach negotiator, observed that the cost of a regional school district used to be divided on a per pupil basis until the state came up with the formula that is now used.

Rolleri said the present formula be­came effective in 1975.

"The man has some valid points," Morro said of Sea Bright’s position.

Rolleri disagreed. "Thirteen percent (Sea Bright’s portion of the tax levy) is not an unfair share to ask from that town," he asserted.

At this point, board attorney Alexis Tucci advised the board not to discuss the further.

"This board has nothing to do with the formula," he said. "This is the law."

"This is such a great budget," Rolleri opined. "It’s a shame it went down."

"We will ask to remove all items from the budget that are not viewed by the state as being under [a thorough and efficient education standards,]" he said.

"Sea Bright," he stressed, "is not getting the quality of education that it is paying for."