At a two-hour Board of Education meeting on March 24, Blairstown Elementary had its collective mind on money. After years of decreasing federal and state aid, the math is clear for next school year: raise taxes, or lose teachers.
First came the non-monetary matters. New board member Nathan Molteni was officially sworn in for his three-year term. Principal Colleen Silvestri celebrated the sixth-grade All Star Band, which performed at a special evening concert at Warren Hills Regional High School on March 2. The school also hosted a range of festivities for Read Across America Day.
Then it was time to talk money.
Top Grades on Managing Last Year’s Budget
Anthony Ardito, owner of the accounting firm Ardito & Company, LLC, presented a financial audit of Blairstown Elementary’s finances last school year. By and large, it was a positive report. He pointed out that the school has no debts (and therefore no debt service fees, a common financial drain), that the school had been “fantastic” at containing administrative costs, and that it had healthy reserve accounts.
Ardito also noted that last year, the school had been forced to undertake considerable accounting work to bring its books in line with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. That work was successfully completed, and he had no recommendations for this year.
There was only one dark spot in his report: the strain of balancing increased expenditures with increasingly tight revenues after several years of declining aid from federal and state sources. As the accounting firm for several schools in the area, Ardito mentioned that he’s seen the same financial squeeze in many Warren County schools.
“Every year is a challenging budget year,” he acknowledged.
Stark Choices for Next Year’s Budget
That challenge would also be the theme of Acting Business Administrator Kathleen Kane’s blunt presentation of the preliminary budget for next school year.
She wasted no time in getting to the point. “What we’re proposing in our presentation tonight is to go to the full allowable tax levy increase of 6.69%,” she said at the start of her presentation. “I know it sounds like a big number, but we’ll show you what the impact is to the different towns.”
And so she did. The numbers told a straightforward story of increasing costs and decreasing revenues.
School costs have risen statewide. The main culprit is a spike in healthcare premiums. While Blairstown’s expenditures are projected to increase by about $430,000 next school year, over two-thirds of that increase comes from the increased cost of covering employee benefits.
The next largest increases cover the cost of sending area children to other schools. As the second largest increase, an additional $115,287 will cover tuition for out-of-district placements that accommodate learning differences and other special education needs, for a total cost next year of almost $386,000. Coming in third, an increase of $87,453 will cover local children’s attendance at Ridge and Valley Charter School.
Charter school attendance, and its accompanying cost, came up several times. Local attendance at Ridge and Valley has increased over the years, which means that the cost for Blairstown to cover that attendance has also increased. In the 2022–2023 school year, Blairstown spent $388,830 to cover charter school tuition for its residents. Next year, 34 children from Blairstown’s district are slated to attend Ridge and Valley, for a total estimated cost to Blairstown of $621,710.
In a different district, with a different set of circumstances, that number would barely register. According to Ardito’s earlier presentation, charter school tuition represented only 3.9% of Blairstown’s total expenditures last year. Out of 11 spending categories, it was the fourth lowest—not a ranking that usually draws special notice.
But Blairstown is a district that has lost over $1 million in state aid over the past decade and over $300,000 in federal aid since 2023. State aid now makes up less than 10% of the school’s total funding.
“There’s something wrong with that,” Kane said. “Warren County, Sussex County… We’re just not getting our appropriate share, because I’m sure we’re sending more of that money down to Trenton than we are getting back. But that is the dilemma.”
The dilemma is where to turn when unavoidable cost increases like health coverage and pension costs exceed the school’s budget. The school can only turn to the revenue source that makes up 88% of its total funding: the local tax levy.
What Blairstown Residents Can Expect in Their Taxes
As Kane established at the beginning, next year’s proposed budget includes a 6.69% increase in taxes.
How the district arrived at that 6.69% increase is a combination of numbers. It’s the sum of the standard 2% tax increased allowed by all schools every year, an enrollment adjustment for increased attendance, a healthcare adjustment from the state (that covers only 70% of the increase in benefits costs), and a sliver of banked cap (an option to increase taxes that the school did not use previously but can still use for this year).
For residents, that would look like a $182 total increase in taxes for the year in Blairstown and a $230 total yearly increase for Hardwick. The total would add $585,000 to Blairstown’s budget, allowing it to not only cover the increase for this year, but also prepare for years to come. Superintendent Dr. Patrick Ketch mentioned that, according to the school’s insurance broker, the cost of staff benefits is poised to continue increasing for the next three years.
Dr. Ketch had already done the math on what would happen if the school stuck to its standard 2% tax increase. In that scenario, the school would be unable to cover its current program and would have to cut two teachers, skip replacing three recently retired teachers, and let go of its school resource officer.
The board voted to approve the preliminary budget. The final budget presentation is currently scheduled for May 5.
The meeting’s two public comment sessions took a combined total of about an hour. Much of the conversation focused on the budget, with those in attendance generally voicing approval for keeping the school strong while acknowledging the pain of higher taxes.
Extensive discussion also covered incidents of alleged bullying at the school and interest in understanding the school’s response to code of conduct violations as well as Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying (HIB) protocol.
Blairstown Elementary’s next Board of Education meeting is scheduled for April 16.
Chip O'Chang is an educator, fiction writer, and lifelong resident of New Jersey. He has also written for My Life Publications and NJ Indy. He lives in the NJ Skylands with his partner, two cats, and and a bearded dragon.
- Chip O'Chang, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/chip-ochang-contributing-writer/
- Chip O'Chang, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/chip-ochang-contributing-writer/
- Chip O'Chang, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/chip-ochang-contributing-writer/
- Chip O'Chang, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/chip-ochang-contributing-writer/
