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Upper Freehold Regional school board introduces 2020-21 budget

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The Upper Freehold Regional School District Board of Education has introduced a $42.6 million budget to support the operation of the school district during the 2020-21 school year.

A public hearing on the budget is scheduled for May 6. The budget, which may be revised until that time, may be adopted by the board following the public hearing.

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Upper Freehold Regional consists of the Newell Elementary School, the Stone Bridge Middle School and Allentown High School. Residents of Upper Freehold Township and Allentown attend all three schools in the district.

Students from Millstone Township attend Allentown High School through a send-receive relationship between Upper Freehold Regional and the Millstone Township K-8 School District.

For 2020-21, the school board has proposed collecting a local tax levy totaling $27.9 million from residential and commercial property owners in Allentown and Upper Freehold Township to support the $42.6 million budget.

Upper Freehold property owners will pay about $24.4 million of the tax levy and Allentown property owners will pay about $3.5 million of the tax levy, according to district administrators.

According to district administrators, the school tax rate for Allentown and Upper Freehold Township will not be determined until the budget’s adoption. The school tax rate for each municipality will help to determine the amount each property owner will pay in school taxes during the upcoming year.

School taxes are one item on a property owner’s tax bill, which also includes municipal taxes and Monmouth County taxes.

The amount of taxes a property owner pays is determined by the assessed value of his home and/or property and the tax rate that is set by each taxing entity.

Upper Freehold Regional’s budget for the 2019-20 school year totaled $43.23 million. The budget was supported by a tax levy of $27.28 million and the receipt of $5.67 million in state aid.

For the 2020-21 school year, Upper Freehold Regional will receive $5.25 million in state aid, a decrease of $421,692. The district’s state aid has decreased each year since the enactment of state legislation known as S-2 in 2018.

“Putting together a 2020-21 budget was a challenge to say the least,” Superintendent of Schools Mark Guterl said upon the budget’s introduction. “Due to the S-2 formula, which the state still has not made public, we lost a little over $420,000 for the upcoming year.

“This was a complete surprise to us as we were only expecting to lose about $58,000. This will continue to be a struggle in future years unless the state looks for a more equitable and fair way to calculate our state aid numbers.

“Districts that are losing money through S-2 are being hurt, which means students are getting hurt. I don’t understand how the state would find this to be OK.

“Needless to say, we are working with similar districts to talk to legislators to let them know how these cuts are hurting kids. In the Upper Freehold Regional School District, we always look for things, not people, to cut first, because our staff is our most valuable resource for kids. This new budget will undoubtedly affect people, which is a shame,” Guterl said.

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