By Peter Elacqua
Staff Writer
April 24 has been scheduled as the date for a public hearing on a $201.9 million budget the Freehold Regional High School District Board of Education has introduced for the 2017-18 school year.
According to district administrators, the budget will be supported by the collection of a combined $135.75 million in taxes from residential and commercial property owners in the district’s eight sending municipalities.
Residents of those eight towns will have the opportunity to comment on or ask questions about the budget during the public hearing at 6:30 p.m. April 24 at Marlboro High School, 95 N. Main St. (Route 79), Marlboro.
The district’s 2016-17 budget totaled $207.3 million and was supported by a tax levy of $132.32 million, according to district administrators.
Assistant Superintendent for Business Sean Boyce said, “The 2016-17 budget provided $5.4 million for various capital projects including a turf field and running track replacement at Howell High School. By contrast, the 2017-18 spending plan does not include any capital projects. On a comparable basis, the district’s 2017-18 budget represents an increase of approximately 1 percent over the current year.”
Boyce said the amount of money property owners pay to support the six high schools in the district will increase by $3.43 million from 2016-17 as a result of the steadily increasing costs of business operations overall.
He said this situation is not only occurring in the Freehold Regional High School District.
“I think all districts are going to eventually get to where they have to make very difficult decisions because the amount of revenue is not increasing as the level of expenditures are,” Boyce said.
The FRHSD will receive $52.88 million in state aid for 2017-18; that is the same amount the district received in 2016-17.
Administrators will use $10.5 million from surplus funds (savings) as revenue in the 2017-18 budget. The 2016-17 budget used $12.6 million from surplus.
Administrators have not presented the high school district tax rate for the eight sending municipalities for 2017-18, but did provide the total amount of taxes that property owners in each municipality will pay in the upcoming year:
• Colts Neck, $13.96 million for 2017-18; up from $13.1 million for 2016-17
• Englishtown, $1 million for 2017-18; up from $919,169 for 2016-17
• Farmingdale, $541,919 for 2017-18; up from $506,587 for 2016-17
• Freehold Borough, $3.6 million for 2017-18; up from $3.31 million for 2016-17
• Freehold Township, $28.21 million for 2017-18; down from $29.28 million for 2016-17
• Howell, $28.99 million for 2017-18; up from $27.54 million for 2016-17
• Manalapan, $26.7 million for 2017-18; up from $26.06 million for 2016-17
• Marlboro, $32.73 million for 2017-18; up from $31.52 million for 2016-17.
Boyce said the district’s anticipated enrollment for 2017-18 is 10,851 students, which will be a decrease from the current enrollment of 10,961 students. He said the number of staff members will remain the same next year.
