The budget calls for about a 3-cent increase in the tax levy from last year per every $100 of assessed home value.
The Evesham Township School District Board of Education has adopted of the tentative 2017–2018 school year budget for submission to the executive county superintendent.
The budget calls for about a 3-cent increase in the tax levy from last year per every $100 of assessed home value.
Residents with the average home assessment of $269,900 would see an $81.22 increase for their K-8 school taxes.
The total budget is set at about $74.9 million, with an overall tax levy increase of 1.64 percent, which is below the state’s allowable increase limit of 2 percent.
However, as Superintendent John Scavelli explained at the latest Evesham BOE meeting, those numbers would most likely change from the board’s adoption of the tentative budget and the final budget adoption in early May.
“There’s several things we’re still working on that could impact the budget one way or another,” Scavelli said.
According to Scavelli, even since the board’s last meeting in February, the district expected to see more tuition revenue due to higher enrollments in the full-day kindergarten and preschool integrated programs.
Scavelli said the district would then need to add a class to the preschool program, with the equivalent of one teacher and aides, but the district also had an additional retirement submitted since last month.
Scavelli said the district is also expected to lease one fewer bus, and he said special education figures for some out-of-district placements had since come in from the Burlington County Special Service School District.
“We can adjust the budget and we’ll continue to do that right up until that’s approved in early May,” Scavelli said.
Scavelli also noted during the meeting that Police Chief Christopher Chew recently sent a memo to the BOE asking the board to once again start sharing in the cost of placing school resource officers in all of the district’s schools.
During last year’s budget cycle, the police department offered to pay for the entire cost program, which at that time had recently expanded, to help the public keep the issue of financing the program separate from the issue of whether to close Evans Elementary School.
Scavelli said Chew did not name a specific figure for the board to contribute to the program.
“If that’s something the board considers moving forward … that’s a cost that would need to be added into the budget,” Scavelli said.
In other news:
• The board reversed its decision from last month to have the district’s administration begin the process of applying to the state to determine if the district would be allowed to sell certain vacant lands the district owns at Cambridge Park, Country Farms and along Kenilworth Road.
Board member Elaine Barbagiovanni first proposed the move, stating her belief that any disposition of lands should come with input from the community during future long-term strategic planning sessions the district is currently the early stages of planning.
• After a back and forth discussion among the members of the board, a majority of the board voted to hold the final approval of this year’s budget at a special meeting on May 4 while also agreeing to change the board’s meeting in late April into a “budget workshop” where the board could further discussion the entire budget in greater detail before final adoption the following week.
