www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080303/NEWS/80303096Freehold teachers, parents protest cutting of school librarian from budget
FREEHOLD — Teachers and parents implored the school board tonight not to cut the district's
librarian from its proposed $19.6 million budget, which calls for a roughly 4 percent increase in the tax levy and includes the addition of 11 employees.
About 40 people turned out for the meeting, at which board members approved the
district's tentative 2008-09 budget. Eight people spoke in defense of the district's
librarian/media specialist, a position officials plan to cut.
"As an educator, it's just absolutely appalling,'' said the president of the Freehold
Borough Education Association, Linda McCarthy. "It was bad enough when we went down to one (librarian) for the three schools (in the district).''
District officials eliminated one librarian from the 2007-08 budget. The remaining librarian splits her time between the Freehold Learning Center building and the Park Avenue complex, which includes Park Avenue Elementary and the Freehold Intermediate School, McCarthy said.
McCarthy told the board that an existing employee should not be cut to make way for new positions, but officials defended their decision.
"It (the librarian cut) is based on what the district needs,'' said Schools Superintendent Elizabeth O'Connell. "We've had needs that we haven't been able to fill for years.''
Students will still have library access, and classrooms have their own libraries, O'Connell said.
After listening to the public, board members left for a brief executive session. When they returned, they approved the district's proposed 2008-09 budget, which totals $19,644,174.
The budget includes roughly $1.5 million in additional aid promised under the state's new funding formula, Board President James Keelan said.
The 2007-08 school budget totalled $17,451,051.
Officials proposed a $8,435,298 tax levy, roughly 4 percent higher than this year's levy, said Business Administrator Veronica Wolf. Of that amount, $7,804,996 makes up the general fund levy that will be voted on April 15.
The remaining $630,302 will go toward the debt service levy.
The tentative budget calls for property owners to see an increase of 2.4 cents per $100 of assessed property value in their 2008 tax bills, Wolf said. The increase translates to about $62.16 more in taxes for the owner of a property assessed at $259,000.
The tax rate could jump to 2.9 cents per $100 of assessed property value in 2009, but that is uncertain because of the way the borough splits the tax bill, Wolf said.
The proposed budget includes the addition of 11 positions, which include restoration of one music and one art teacher, one second and fourth-grade teacher each, two instructional aides, a bilingual literacy teacher for the kindergarten and first grades, a resource inclusion teacher (to work with mainstreamed special education students), a bilingual learning disabilities teacher, a new computer technician and a clerical assistant for the Buildings and Grounds Department.
Officials also hope to adopt new literacy texts for the kindergarten through eighth grades and provide more money for the principals' instructional accounts, the first time the district has been able to do so in at least six years, according to O'Connell.
The district has also added money to its buildings and grounds accounts for maintenance that had been put off during budget cuts, Wolf said.
"We're trying to get back on an even keel with that," O'Connell said before the meeting.
