November 18 BOE Vote

Our school district is under crushing fiscal challenges.

Our immense challenges will not let up for more than five years (the farthest out our fiscal models can predict).

On Monday November 18, the Board of Education will vote on constructing a brand new indoor pool at Columbia High School. The pool would be fully funded by the taxpayers requiring $8.1 million of debt to finance.

We urge the Board of Education to NOT approve the pool and NOT to impose $8.1 million of debt on the taxpayers for this purpose. A luxury project, such as a new pool, in an era of limited financial resources, ballooning school budget deficits, high taxes and economic uncertainty demonstrates irresponsible financial management.

Even without a pool, the South Orange-Maplewood School District is under immense fiscal challenges. Due to growing health care, salary and Out of District tuition costs, and grim prospects for additional state and federal aid, the District has conservatively projected that it will have an operating budget shortfall for the district increasing to $17.4 million (out of a $115 million operating budget) in five years even if operating taxes could rise 2% per year. <http://bit.ly/1aBiZCr >

What's more, there are expenses not even captured in the $17.4 million deficit estimate. We have growing enrollment (kindergarten has 521 children, first grade has 555) and therefore the school district is going to have to hire more staff members to accommodate the students if the schools are going to maintain class size. Our buildings are nearly a century old and our architectural firm has identified $90 million in repairs and improvements to be made over the next 12 years. (Just recently, a pipe burst at CHS, causing a flood and delaying the start of the school day.) Technology is always advancing and the school district needs to spend money on "teching up" to prepare our students for the 21st century. The federal and state governments constantly place well- intentioned, but expensive, unfunded mandates with which we must comply.

The projected $17.4 million deficit also does not include any new programs. Our budget situation makes continuing to offer all of the district’s current programs a challenge; with the expenses of a pool hemming in our budget, the chances of being able to fund new programs are that much smaller.

Precise amounts for the debt service of the pool have not been given out by the Administration, but it costs about $76,000 a year for the school district to borrow $1,000,000. Therefore, the annual debt repayment of an $8.1 million pool would be more than $600,000 a year.The district has already made many cuts, implemented new fees and outsourced sectors of staffing. Now is not the time to embark on a luxury project. The Board of Education must be fiscally responsible and concentrate its limited resources where it can have the greatest educational impact. It cannot impose on taxpayers the cost of all services and projects that it thinks would be nice to have; South Orange-Maplewood’s property taxes are already excessive.

Board President Beth Daugherty has cited two reasons for her push for the $8.1 million pool: swimming lessons and a facility for the high school swim team. We support swimming lessons for children, but we believe that swimming lessons should be overseen by the towns’ recreation departments and the current swim instruction programs at our expansive town pools should be utilized for that purpose. We urge the Board of Education to find another practice venue for the swim team, as other area high schools do (including Milburn, Livingston and West Orange). Seton Hall University, located within our community, is an obvious partner. Spending $8.1 million for a facility used by one sports team is excessive and not reasonable.

If a pool is to be built at Columbia High School, it must be accomplished through private funding rather than imposing the cost on the taxpayers. We cannot afford to deepen our school system’s ballooning budget shortfall by building this luxury project, unnecessary for the running of our schools. More importantly, we cannot trade off educational programming to make annual debt payments for a new pool.

The Board of Education must focus on its core academic mission and stabilize taxes!

Marian Cutler

Morrisa da Silva 

Donna Smith 

Andrea Marino