To the Editor:
Recently, both members of the public and our employee organizations have made inaccurate comments regarding the budgetary challenge the Board faced in 2016-2017 and in the current budget year as well. Therefore, I feel compelled to address the misunderstanding of the fiscal crisis faced by the Board of Education in the 2016-2017 school year.
First of all, the State audit report that has been referred to dealt solely with the 2015-2016 budget year. The fiscal crisis occurred in 2016-2017.
Second, the fiscal crisis of 2016-17 was first discovered in the 2015-2016 CAFR (audit report) conducted by the Board’s auditors. The auditors found that in the prior four years (2011-2015) the Board’s spending exceeded its revenues by almost $18 million. That spending was the major cause of the 2016-2017 $2 million structural deficit. The phrase structural deficit means that if the Board did not immediately institute cuts in its budget it would have finished the year with more than a $2 million deficit.
Consequently, when the Board learned of this structural deficit on November 20, 2016, it immediately began reducing expenditures in the 2016-2017 budget year. As a result of this, the Board made significant budget cuts during the 2016-2017 budget year. Because the Board made significant budget cuts during the 2016-2017 budget year, we ended the year with a $1.2 million surplus which was less than required by the State of New Jersey, and far less than what was projected in the Board’s adopted budget.
Finally, as a result of the overspending in the years prior to 2016-2017, the resulting layoffs of employees has now reduced our staff by 73 fewer teachers, seven fewer secretaries, 10 fewer custodians, and 20 fewer support staff. Even with these reductions in personnel, the Board still had to raise taxes by 5.62 percent in order to cover the costs in its 2017-2018 budget.
JOSEPH BRODERICK
President, BBOED
