Council expected to cut school budget next week Officials work with auditor to scrutinize board's spending BY MICHAEL ACKER Staff Writer SAYREVILLE- Borough officials will decide next week on cuts to the Board of Education's defeated $73 million school budget. The Borough Council hired an auditor to find areas that can be cut from the 2008-09 school year budget, which was defeated at the polls April 15. The budget called for a $99 tax increase for the owner of property assessed at the borough average of $143,000. Last year, voters also defeated the school budget, and the council then reduced it budget by $750,000. Council President Dennis Grobelny said the council's finance committee met with the auditing firm of Samuel Klein and Company before Monday's council meeting. He said the council would make a final decision on the budget after what he expects to be a lengthy dialogue at the May 12 meeting. "We all have our own ideas," Grobelny said. Grobelny disagrees with the board's decision to include a number of infrastructure repairs and improvements, though the district received a $3.5 million increase in state aid for this budget. He feels that the district should improve its preventative maintenance program and plan to make a few infrastructure improvements every year. "So now they want to go do it all at once, but I would have liked to see them give some tax relief in the budget," Grobelny said. Councilman Stanley Drwal said he understands that the board included infrastructure improvements that have been put off in the past due to fears that the state would cut aid in the future. However, he advised that the board deal with potential cuts in state aid next year if they occur. "Perhaps you should worry about that next year in light of budgetary problems," Drwal said during Monday's meeting, when Superintendent of Schools FrankAlfano and school Business Administrator Emidio D'Andrea answered questions from borough officials. Alfano said the board planned for the future in this budget, focusing on nonresidual costs in the event that state aid dries up next year. He said repairs have been postponed for several years due to budget constraints, and the buildings and grounds committee went to all eight school buildings in order to assess what the board needed to address now to avoid further problems later. Alfano said the district has a preventative maintenance program in place, but he added that the problem is due to the fact that usually only $1 million of the board's average $70 million budget is dedicated to facility maintenance. Councilman Rory Zach asked about capital outlay projects and wanted an update on proposed door replacements. Alfano said those items are necessary for security reasons, since some of the exterior doors at Eisenhower School, Sayreville Middle School and Sayreville War Memorial High School do not close sufficiently in order for the door to automatically lock. "Conditions in certain buildings are pretty deplorable," Alfano said. Repairs such as door replacements have been pulled out of previous budgets and have been put off until now, when the district is in dire need of the work, Alfano said. He added that some of the doors are 20 to 40 years old and receive a significant amount of use, so the repairs are not for aesthetic purposes. D'Andrea said the district's necessary door replacements would cost a total of between $750,000 and $1 million, according to a report by an outside vendor. He added that the board only included the most necessary door replacements in the budget. "Obviously, not everything needs to be replaced," D'Andrea said. Alfano told the council that additional teachers were needed in math and science in order to maintain or slightly reduce class sizes, which are between 21 and 28 students on average, with some classes at the middle school as high as 30 or more students. Alfano noted that the new teachers would only reduce the class sizes slightly, on average, but they would help the district meet its curriculum goals. On computers, D'Andrea said the oldest ones in the district are nine years old and the board is on a nine-year recycling schedule. The goal is to bring that down to a six-year period, he added. In response to a question from Councilwoman Paula Siarkiewicz, D'Andrea said he consulted with a grant writer who said that companies tend to seek out notoriety in their donations by giving to large school districts such as New York City. He said the district did not approach companies directly. "We look in any direction for any donation we can take," D'Andrea said. "They just haven't been out there." Zach reiterated that the council's recommended cuts would not adversely affect the students. He later told Greater Media Newspapers that the council does not have a specific number in mind yet for the amount of the cuts, since the auditor still has questions on operations for the board. He said the auditor has identified areas in the budget where the district can realize savings. "I don't want to get into specifics at this time until we have the final recommendations, because that is quite flexible," Zach said Tuesday. The board has to budget for infrastructure improvements on a regular basis in order to avoid greater costs down the road, Zach said. "In hindsight, if some of these infrastructure improvements were done over a period of time instead of being put off, it would have probably benefited the tax rate this year," Zach said. Siarkiewicz told Greater Media Newspapers that while she understands the board has salary confinements to account for in addition to other items, a number of capital outlay projects should have been done sooner to prevent the district from getting to this point. "They should have been thinking about those capital projects all along," she said. Siarkiewicz reiterated Zach's statement that the council would not recommend cuts to items that the students need. She said she agrees with Grobelny that the board should have considered the state of the economy more with this budget. "I think this is a tough year to ask people, especially the council, to approve a budget that the residents of Sayreville voted down," Siarkiewicz said. Siarkiewicz said that based on the auditor's assessment of the budget, it is a lean spending plan, and the board did well on the revenue side. Siarkiewicz said that while the council has only a limited amount of time to recommend cuts, it is working to ensure the voters' concerns are addressed. "The residents have spoken," she said. "I think it is incumbent upon us that we take a long look at this budget." Grobelny said officials have to consider that this is a period in which taxpayers are feeling the pressure of rising gas prices and an overall decline in the economy. "I feel when you get that kind of money you didn't expect [from the state], I think more thought should have been put into it then," Grobelny said. "I realize that things have to be maintained and replaced from time to time, but it seems like an awful lot at one time." The council will meet on the budget again at 6 p.m. Monday at borough hall. The Board of Education will then hold a special meeting at the high school library Tuesday to adopt the budget.