Holmdel BOE approves $840K in budget cuts
BY ERIN O. STATTEL Staff Writer

HOLMDEL — The Board of Education took the Township Committee's advice and approved reductions to its failed budget at last week's meeting.

The Holmdel Township Committee unanimously approved $840,000 worth of spending cuts to the Holmdel Township Public School District's defeated budget.

According to a resolution passed at the May 27 Board of Education meeting, $375,000 was reduced from the line item dedicated to salaries; $75,000 from electricity and $75,000 from natural gas line items; $100,000 from health benefits; and $25,000 from other employee benefits, among other line item reductions.

The Holmdel Board of Education introduced a total spending plan of $56,381,901 earlier in the spring, but the $47.4 million tax levy called for by the district's 2009-10 spending plan was defeated by voters at the polls April 21.

Deputy Mayor Pat Impreveduto read the resolution during the special May 18 Township Committee meeting authorizing the reduction of $840,000 from various recommended line items in the budget, bringing the tax levy down from $47,404,487 to $46,564,487.

Residents alluded to administrators' salaries during the May 18 special Township Committee meeting and suggested that they should be analyzed as well.

Resident Bill Allingham questioned the Board of Education's reason for not cutting administrators' salaries.

"I am not satisfied with what transpired here tonight," he said after the committee approved the resolution. "I am now finding out certain facts that should have been made public.

"Our superintendent will receive a $9,000 raise on top of a $200,000 salary, and now I am told, after the meeting, that she has a contract that builds a raise in every year. This is something that the public is not told."

Allingham said that according to the budget figures residents were given, this year there was a $1.5 million increase to the budget, but he felt there was a lack of adequate explanation of the allocations.

"Looking at how they allocate the funds, about 79 percent of the budget goes to salaries and benefits," he said, holding a budget description provided by the district.

"That means about $1.2 million of the $1.5 million increase goes to increases in salaries and benefits. The idea that public employees get these kinds of raises in this kind of economy is crazy."

The Holmdel Township Public Schools Board of Education will hold a meeting June 24 in the William R. Satz School library at 8 p.m. to take action to modify contract terms and conditions of the school district's superintendent, assistant superintendent, curriculum and instruction personnel, and the business administrator/board secretary.