Sea Bright to be whacked once again by Shore budget

High school’s budget places heaviest burden on smallest sending district

amy byrnes walsack

The Hub

Similar to the movie Groundhog Day, where the main character is forced to relive the same tedious day over and over, Sea Bright has discovered that once again its taxpayers will be paying almost three times the average cost to send students to Shore Regional High School.

As in a bad dream, the borough is caught in a vortex created by the state in which, year after year for more than 25 years, Sea Bright has been forced to pay disproportionate costs because of the formula used to determine expenditures for member districts in regional school settings.

If the proposed $9.4 million budget for the 2000-2001 school year is approved, the owner of a $200,000 home in Sea Bright would pay an extra $389 in taxes to send 35 students, who make up only 5 percent of the high school’s population.

Breaking the $1.2 million tax levy down into a per student cost, Sea Bright would spend approximately $35,000 per student, more than 2.5 times the projected cost for other students at Shore Regional, which is $13,000.

While Monmouth Beach’s tax rate would also rise slightly under the proposed budget, both Oceanport and West Long Branch would see a decrease in the regional school tax levy.

West Long Branch faces the most significant decrease in the tax rate at 14.5 cents, although students attending Shore Regional from that district make up about 42 percent of the school’s population. Yet their cost to send each student is $10,700 per pupil.

As part of a member district (as opposed to a sending and receiving district, which pay on a tuition basis. Sea Bright does this with Oceanport elementary schools.), Sea Bright is endlessly drawing the short end of the stick because of a 1975 formula imposed by the state to calculate each sending district’s costs.

According to Councilman William Gelfound, the formula is based on the assessed valuation of the town, the number of students it sends to the high school, and the number of children attending the district’s elementary schools. Since Sea Bright’s valuation and the number of its elementary school students decreased this year, the anticipated 10 percent increase in high school students works against the borough when the state formula is applied by the high school.

While school administrators hesitate to use numbers based on per student costs, Gelfound said the discrepancy in the student/cost ratio is hard to ignore.

At a special meeting called last week to discuss the situation, the mayor and council members discussed both short- and long-term solutions to the problem, as well as those taken in the past.

To help cushion the blow of next year’s budget, the Borough Council authorized its chief financial officer to apply for extraordinary appropriations from the state to offset the $321,000 increase.

Sea Bright has already applied to the state for extraordinary aid based on the proposed $3.9 million municipal budget, which would raise taxpayers’ bills by 7-cents and would mean a $140 increase in the tax bill for a $200,000 home.

Another temporary solution would involve setting a cap on per pupil spending, ensuring the state would cover costs over and above that amount.

Council members also urged residents to defeat the budget at the April 18 election, although they acknowledged that, even if successful, the move would probably not substantially alter taxpayers’ bills, as the budget must be reduced by $135,000 to see a one-cent decrease in taxes.

Gelfound pointed out that although the budget was successfully defeated and reduced last year by $400,000 by the four sending districts, all towns were facing a tax increase, whereas only Sea Bright and Monmouth Beach face rate hikes this year.

A committee composed of Gelfound, Mayor Gregory Harquail and Councilman William Keeler agreed to investigate legal and legislative venues to bring about long term solutions to the situation, and will present options at the next meeting.

Toward the end of the special meeting, resident Victor Perotti stood before the crowd and announced that he was in part responsible for the borough’s current situation.

As the former president of the borough’s school board, Perotti said he had been involved in the creation of Shore Regional in 1962 that he said was originally based on fair and equal distribution of costs from the four sending districts.

The situation was altered considerably in 1975 when the state adopted the formula used to calculate districts’ sending costs, and over the course of five years, Sea Bright’s costs quadrupled and have continued to plague taxpayers over the years.

Perotti noted that ironically the vehicle through which the formula was introduced is known as the Thorough and Efficient Education Act.