At the most recent Evesham Township School District Board of Education meeting on March 16, 2023, Superintendent Justin Smith presented the tentative budget for the 2023-2024 school year. The presentation is meant to provide parents and taxpayers with the fiscal plans for the 2023-2024 school year and allow them time to review. The final budget will be presented and voted on at the next School Board meeting on April 27, 2023. The slides from the presentation can be found here. The livestream of the presentation can be found here.
In order to understand the budget for next year, it is first necessary to understand where we are. While most of the district budget comes from local property taxes, a substantial portion comes from State Aid - money that comes from the State Government and is given to every district in New Jersey. Our district is now in year 6 of 7 of substantial State Aid reduction. Beginning in the 2018-2019 school year, our district received less aid than in the prior year. For the last three years, that reduction was well over $1 million per year.
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| By 2024, our district will receive $7.3M less in aid PER YEAR than in the 2017-2018 school year. |
For the coming 2023-24 school year, our district is expected to receive $737,552 less than the current year. That means, ignoring inflation and contractually obligated pay increases for staff, our district must cut costs or increase revenue by $737,552 just to balance its budget - a legal requirement.
Whenever I make a post like this, there are always a few responses like 'CUT THE ADMIN STAFF!' or 'GET RID OF THE BLOAT AT THE TOP.' To forestall this, I am including the following: in New Jersey, there are 77 'large' K-8 districts, with large being defined as more than 750 students in the district. For the 2021-2022 school year (the last year available at the State's website), Evesham ranked #1 in fewest dollars spent on Administration per student. It doesn't appear there is bloat to cut. There is a lot of good information at the State of NJ Department of Education 'Taxpayers Guide to Education Spending' if you should want some more information.
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| Note: there are 77 'large' districts but only 73 reported |
To cut expenses for next year, a few bus routes have been eliminated, affecting 125 children at Van Zant, Jaggard and Marlton Middle. It looks like elementary students (excluding Kindergarten) on the far side of Greentree Road will now be walkers. In reading some comments from Woodstream residents, that side of Greentree Road were not provided busses until 2018 - they were walkers prior to that. In addition, Briarwood middle schoolers will now be walkers. There are a couple of other changes, which are well documented in the presentation. Please check the maps/photos in the presentation if you think you are affected.
There will also be some staff reductions to cut costs - while some of these will be achieved through retirement, it looks like there will be actual cuts.
To make up the rest of the shortfall in the budget, the district will be raising taxes the maximum allowable, 2%. For the average home in Evesham assessed at $272,628, there will be an increase of $69.45 per year. If your home is assessed at more than that, your increase will be higher.
And finally - the district made it a goal earlier in the year to find a way to provide taxpayer funded full day Kindergarten for all residents. Currently, only half day Kindergarten is taxpayer funded - full day Kindergarten is available via paid tuition only. In order to achieve that goal, the district will be putting a question on the ballot in November to fund Kindergarten.
To provide Tuition-Free Full Day Kindergarten for all students, shall Evesham Township School District be authorized to raise an additional $1,900,000 for General Funds in the 2024-2025 school year?
If voters in Evesham approve the ballot measure, the taxes will be used exclusively for Full Day Kindergarten. According to Dr Smith, there are only 8 districts out of 600 in the state that charge for full day Kindergarten. Currently the district charges $5,500 for full day Kindergarten. It is expected that the tax increase just for this measure will cost the average homeowner approximately $98 per year.
No rezoning is expected to be necessary if the ballot measure for full day Kindergarten funding is passed.
In addition, there will be a second ballot question:
To provide Mental Health Services for Elementary and Middle School students, shall Evesham Township School District be authorized to raise an additional $190,000 for General Funds in the 2024-25 school year?
If approved, these taxes will be used exclusively for Elementary and Middle School mental health services.
The budget is currently a tentative budget only - there were changes last year from the tentative budget to the approved budget. There may be changes this year as well. The next meeting of the School Board is April 27th.
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For news about the Lenape Regional High School District 2023-2024 budget, which includes Cherokee High School, please read this post.
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