Evesham School District Preliminary Budget 2021-2022 - Staff Reductions and Bus Changes

The Evesham Township Board of Education met at DeMasi Middle School on February 25, 2021. The highlight of the meeting was the 2021-2022 Preliminary Budget Presentation to the public. While the Final Budget is not adopted until May, this is the first glimpse the public gets of what to expect for the next school year. While there are sometimes changes between the preliminary and final budgets, this gives a good idea of what the district is facing. The pictures I used in this post all come from the Budget Presentation, which is available on the district website
https://www.evesham.k12.nj.us/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=24936264

There is a LOT to go over here. Due to a severe budget crunch, there are a lot of changes proposed which will affect a great many people. Please try to keep one thing in mind: much of the reason for the budget cuts is due to a severe reduction in state aid that began in the 2018-2019 fiscal year (and will continue for another 2 years). Whether you want to blame the Governor, or the previous Governor, or any of a host of other local and national politicians, the local school board doesn't control those cuts. They just have to deal with the results. If the aid is reduced, the School Board must reduce spending or raise taxes. Those are the two basic options.

Here is the main driver for the budget issues: following a $1.39 million cut in state aid last year, aid to Evesham Township was reduced again this year by an additional $1.72 million.

Budgeted and Actual State Aid

In addition to the lost aid, due to Covid, there are a few other items that will severely impact next years budget

$1.15 million in lost 'Miscellaneous Revenue'. This was due to less income from ECC and paid Kindergarten. Fewer parents opted for paid full time kindergarten In my Enrollment Summary from September, I noted that full-day Kindergarten enrollment was down 128 children as of September 2020. At $5,500 per enrollment, that puts another hole in the budget
The cost and frequency of need of substitute teachers is way up. The rate has gone from $90 to $140. Overall there was a 190% increase in costs for substitute teachers.
As a result of the pandemic, the USDA offered free lunch for ALL children. Because of this, fewer students enrolled in the 'Free and Reduced Lunch Program'. Evesham and all districts receive some amount of aid based on the number of children enrolled in this program.

There were also changes in the health plan for staff, which required the district to pay more towards their healthcare (referred as Chapter 44 on the photo below).

In all the total reduction in revenue is $1.86 million.

To address this shortfall, there is no one single place to find $1.8 million, so the school has addressed it in many different ways. I'll go through each item separately.

SROs (School Resource Officers - Police Officers)

There are two changes to SROs in the proposed budget. One is to reduce the number of SROs from 8 to 7. This would be accomplished by having only one SRO at DeMasi. There are currently two - one for the middle school and one for the elementary school, even though they are the same building.

The other way SROs is affected is that the School District intends to put the funding of SROs on the November ballot on Election Day. A question would appear on the ballot to raise an addition $437,500 in general funds per year solely for the purpose of funding the SRO program. (This would be prorated to $262,500 for the January 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022 time frame. The July 1 2021 - December 31, 2021 time frame would be funded in the regular school budget).

It should be noted that if the vote fails, the school district will be unable to fund SROs for the January 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022 time frame. As per Dr Smith, if a ballot funding measure fails, it cannot then be funded through the budget for that same year. For the following 2022-2023 school year, they can fund if through the budget again if they can find the funds.

Transportation Changes

The district is also proposing making some neighborhoods walking zones where they are currently bussed. (I assume this EXCLUDES Kindergarten students. I will try to confirm that.) The goal is to reduce bus routes and reduce the reliance on Hillman Bus Service. Where appropriate, the district will fund crossing guards.

For Van Zant school, this would include families West of Route 73 and North of Greentree, including 'The Hollows' neighbhorhood. This affects 63 students.

For Rice, this would include Doral, Links and Whitemarsh, along with the Two Crown Royal area and the Five Crown Royal.

For MMS, Briarwood would be converted to a walker zone. This affects 30 students.

For MES, again, Briarwood would be converted to a walker zone. This affects 41 students.

For Jaggard, anyone west of Evans would become a walker. 26 students.

For DeMasi Elementary and DeMasi Middle School, all of Colts Run will become walkers. This affects 88 students. But good news. Colts Run will have transportation on a subscription basis: if you want busing, you can pay for it. The cost will be $350 a year. (At 180 school days and two trip per day, that works out to about $1 per trip, or $2 per school day.

For some students West of Greenbrook in Cambridge Park, there will be an even bigger change. These students currently go to Beeler, but will be rezoned to DeMasi Elementary. They will become walkers there. This affects 27 students. For those students currently in 4th grade, going into 5th grade next year, they will have the option of remaining at Beeler if they wish.

Staff Reductions

There will also be a reduction in staff. While many of those reductions will be through attrition (vacant positions or retiring staff members), there will be some staff let go. Dr Smith noted that this would be discussed in full at the next Board of Education meeting on March 11.

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Dr Smith pointed out there are some steps that have already been taken or are currently being taken. There was no information given on what 4 properties they are considering selling.

In most years, the school district has some unused 'CAP' they can add to the budget. Unfortunately, due to the cuts last year, all the CAP was used. The board is proposing the maximum 2% tax levy increase to balance their budget. On an average Evesham home assessed at $271,900, this would result in a tax increase of $47.50.

The next Board of Education meeting is on March 11, where they will adopt the tentative budget.

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