School referendum set for March 14
BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

EATONTOWN –– Almost six months later than originally anticipated, the local school board will ask taxpayers to spend $18.1 million schools toward construction projects at four district buildings.

A referendum on the long-awaited construction, which would result in additions, renovations, and alterations to the buildings in the K-8 district, is now scheduled for March 14, according to a Jan. 19 press release issued by district officials.

The new proposal is the result of extensive tweaking of the original building plans by the Eatontown Board of Education and an ad hoc residents group according to Superintendent of Schools Jean E. Hoover.

The overall price tag for the revised referendum is about $17.5 million less than the $35.6 million building referendum the district had originally planned to put before voters last September.

“As our hardworking ad hoc residents group learned during the months its members worked to develop a project, the district still has very real facilities issues,” Hoover said in the press release.

“The proposal elements differ from the project proposed by the ad hoc group. Therefore, the construction costs are significantly lower,” she added.

Robert Garrison of Mount Laurel-based Garrison Architects, also reviewed the plans with the school board to ensure that priority items were addressed in the revised plans, Hoover said.

In December, the school board authorized Garrison to prepare new specifications, schematic plans and an amendment to the district’s long-range facilities plan, the press release states.

“We revisited the plan with our board members and architects to ensure it includes only the most critical items to address our district’s greatest needs for the foreseeable future,” Hoover said.

The $18.1 million figure represents the local cost, according to Norma Tursi, the district’s business administrator.

District officials are unsure at present if the financially troubled New Jersey Schools Construction Corporation (NJSCC), created in 2000 by the state Legislature, will help pick up part of the construction tab, Tursi said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

Initially, the NJSCC had pledged that it would kick in a $9.7 million subsidy if the $35.6 million referendum were approved by voters.

However, when the state Department of Education notified the school board late last summer that the subsidy could not be guaranteed due to the SCC’s financial woes, the Sept. 27 referendum was indefinitely postponed.

District officials then went back to the drawing board with their building plans. The new $18.1 million package is the end result.

Tursi indicated that she did not have figures for the property-tax breakdown per household for the new referendum.

Under the new proposal, the district’s three elementary schools — Vetter, Woodmere and Meadowbrook — would retain their kindergarten through sixth-grade configuration, according to the district press release.

Memorial School would continue to house seventh- and eighth-graders, without taking in district sixth-graders as had first been proposed.

The new proposal calls for a media center/library to be added onto Memorial, according to the release from the district.

If the referendum goes through, the same school would also undergo renovations to several of its instructional areas including its science labs, gymnasium, art and music classrooms and small group instruction rooms.

Eatontown Board of Education President John Schiels believes the package presented in the revised referendum plan will be more acceptable to the district’s taxpayers and more likely to garner voter support.

“We feel we are now adequately prepared to present a facilities upgrade referendum to Eatontown residents,” Schiels said in the district press release.

The school board has considered the interests of voters who might already be concerned with how a recent revaluation of properties in the borough will affect taxes and the impact of the impending closure of Fort Monmouth by the Pentagon, Schiels noted.

“Residents are already worried about the effects of the recently completed revaluation and the issue of development and the future of Fort Monmouth,” Schiels said.

“We did not want to add to those concerns by moving forward with a project that did not satisfy our long-term infrastructure needs and was not fiscally responsible,” he added.

To keep residents informed, the board will host a series of information events in the coming weeks to communicate the plan to residents and to respond to questions, the district release states.

A newsletter detailing project elements and costs will also be mailed to all Eatontown residents in late February.

The district will also post information about the referendum on its Web site, www.eatontown.org where residents can check regularly for updates, the release states.