School board had to face the music and make cuts

To the Editor: Recently you reported on the music program cuts at the elementary school level and in particular addressed a letter that Ralph Flaherty sent to the board of education. I have done some research to try to understand the cuts and here is what I found. Last year, due to state law (S1701), Sparta schools had to cut $325,000 in additional monies from the budget after the board spent extensive time stripping virtually every program down to its core basics. The board went so far as to bring back into the district two special education programs in order to save money (i.e., tuition to other districts). However, this further complicated the overall space issues that continue to make headline news. The district replaced a number of retiring teachers with lower paid ones and also did not implement a plan to hire department supervisors. As of today, our schools have no academics supervisors or any department chairpersons. What I find troubling is that no other N.J. school district with more than 4100 students is functioning without supervisory and curriculum personnel. So what does all this boil down to? To reduce property taxes, the budgetary rules associated with S1701 allowed Sparta to increase its budget in 2005 by 3.01%, or roughly $1.5 million. Salaries account for $40 million of the total budget. The last negotiated teachers’ raise calls for an increase of 4.5% in each of three years beginning in 2004. Each year the board needs $1.8 million to cover raises, so there had to be a $300,000 cut somewhere in order to be compliant with the law. With a lot of due diligence the administration was able to make the cuts in the budget without a huge reduction in head count (only the director of educational programs reporting to Dr. Monks was eliminated). When an elementary music teacher retired, it was decided to cut general music from two periods per week to one period per week in the fourth and fifth grades. With regard to the coming year’s budget, depending on how many teachers retire, and what changes occur in the funding formula, our schools could be facing a larger problem. The teachers are in the third year of their contract, and the salary raise is again going to be 4.5%. If the budget increase is only 3.01% again, we will face another shortfall and even harder decisions. Kevin M. Pollison Sparta