State Education Aid to Westfield Increases by $800K

State aid to Westfield public schools will almost triple this year, following where Gov. Chris Christie announced an increase of overall funding for school aid.

Schools Superintendent Margaret Dolan announced Wednesday afternoon that school officials had been informed that Westfield will receive $1,293,448 in education aid for the 2011-2012 budget. This is an increase of $845,448 , an all time low for the school district.

"This increase will help minimize the fiscal challenge we face as a district to maintain the tradition of excellence in the Westfield Public Schools," Dolan said in an email. "Our taxpayers pay millions of dollars in income tax to Trenton and deserve considerable relief in local property tax, the main source of funding for our schools. This increase in state aid will assist in this area."

During his budget address to the state Legislature on Tuesday, Christie announced that he was increasing the total amount of education aid by $250 million in the next state budget. In the budget he proposed last year, Christie cut state education aid, resulting in most school districts losing between 75-percent and 100-percent of their education aid from the state.

Westfield lost $4.22 million, or 90.4-percent, in education in Christie's 2010 budget. The news, which came two weeks before final adoption of the 2010-2011 school budget by the Board of Education resulted in two weeks worth of budget cutting meetings by the BOE. As a result of the cut, the BOE implemented the town's , along with 33 staff members and making other cuts including a decision to stop buying new library books.

Last week, Dolan and BOE business administrator Bob Berman outlined the process the school system will use to develop the new budget proposal. While Dolan, Berman and other top school offiicals have been meeting with building principals and department heads to go over individual budget proposals, the two said the bulk of the budget writing would be finalized after Christie unveiled his budget and a state aid amount was announced by acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf.

Dolan and Berman said the final budget will be developed by the BOE finance committee in the coming weeks with a final budget being adopted by the board by the end of March. The BOE is due to submit a total budget amount to the acting county schools superintendent by the end of next week.

The public will need to vote on the school budget proposal in the April 27 school election. If the budget is defeated at the polls, Mayor Andy Skibitsky and the Town Council will review the school budget and are required to make cuts to the total appropriation, with the BOE making cuts to the specific budget to meet the requirements set by town leaders.

While state aid is increasing, details of the final budget are not yet known. The final budget will need to meet several requirements including the that is its first year. During the budget overview last week, Berman said the district is seeing savings in several areas, including in energy costs which have freed up revenue for the school system in the budget process.