The reality of New Jersey’s new school funding law continued to be felt in the meeting room of the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District Board of Education on Dec. 4 at district headquarters in Englishtown.
Board members grappled with a report from Superintendent of Schools John J. Marciante Jr. in which he said $3 million in reductions must be made as the administration and the board develop a budget for the 2019-20 school year.
During a previous meeting, board President Dotty Porcaro asked Marciante to evaluate the district’s administrative staff and determine if savings could be achieved in that area of the budget.
On Dec. 4, Assistant Superintendent Nicole Santora placed two options on the table: the first option would reduce the supervisory staff by one position and combine two full-time positions into one full-time position; the second option would involve changes at the assistant principal level, but no employees would be let go.
Santora said both options would allow the board to save on benefits.
“Both options will have a significant impact on our department, (but) we will make whatever plan you go with work,” she said.
When a board member asked Santora which option she would recommend, Marciante said the options were before the board members and if they want to make a change at the administrative level, they must be the individuals who decide in which direction to move.
“Everything we are going to do is going to hurt the district,” board member Joe Tringali said.
“We are going to face other cuts down the road. I would like to do the least impactful thing for 2019-20,” Porcaro said.
Porcaro, Gerald Bruno and Brian Graime suggested that reducing the supervisory staff by one position and leaving the assistant principals alone might be the best option for the upcoming school year.
Graime called that option the “least disruptive route.”
Marciante said “nothing is written in stone” at this time and he did not rule out the possibility that both administrative options Santora suggested might have to be employed in 2019-20.
Regarding the broader topic of the reduction in funding the district is facing during the next six years as a result of action that was taken in the state Legislature during the summer, Tringali said, “We need to look at every department” for possible reductions, and Bruno said there is a need for every department in the district to “share the pain.”
“I’ve tried to do that,” Marciante told Bruno. “We are looking at a very deep hole to dig out of.”
The superintendent said more definitive budget numbers are expected to be available in January and at that time board members will have to begin making final decisions about programs and employees included in the 2019-20 budget.
The process of developing a budget will continue through the first few months of 2019 until the board approves a spending plan for the upcoming school year.
