BOE Passes Budget 8-1, Slater Votes No

 The Board of Education passed the proposed school budget by an 8-1 vote Tuesday evening, a departure from the usual unanimous budget votes.

BOE member Mitch Slater voted no on the $91 million spending plan, citing concerns he had with the process used to adopt the budget. While BOE member David Finn voted for the spending plan, he said he had concerns with the budget drafting process. The vote came after a meeting, featuring several residents urging unanimous passage of the budget, which now goes to a public vote on April 27.

“I love our town, I love our schools and our great teachers, and am sitting here because of my kids and yours and those whose kids have gone through our schools and are continuing to pay their taxes every year,” Slater said in his speech to the board. “But I have to follow my conscience and cast my vote tonight as a no.”

The $91 million spending plan includes the two-percent tax increase and a spending increase of 1.3-percent. Schools Superintendent Margaret Dolan said the plan does not include any cuts, a difference from the previous two budgets. In addition the district includes an $800,000 increase in state aid, to $1.2 million.

Slater laid out three areas on why he voted no. He said he had unanswered questions about the budget process and was not privy to all budget related information, saying the information was left in the hands of the finance committee. He said he would have liked to have known what a lower tax increase would have brought. The budget proposal contains a two-percent tax increase, the highest allowed by state law. 

Slater also said that he wanted to have the budget to contain funds for the district’s capital reserve fund and then to have the board approach the Westfield Education Association about a salary concession. Slater has long opposed the teachers’ contract, which calls for a 3.9-percent salary increase for three years. WEA President Kim Schumacher has Slater’s calls for changes to the salary. Last week, BOE President Julia Walker said that the BOE did not bring up salary changes with the WEA during negotiations on contract givebacks.

Slater’s was not the only no vote from a BOE member on a budget in New Jersey on Tuesday night. Hoboken BOE member Maureen Sullivan on her city’s budget proposal, saying she wanted to send a message to the state Education Department over state rules for how Hoboken had to develop its school budget.  

No votes from BOE members on the budget have been rare in Westfield, with the last coming over a decade ago. They are also rare in most school districts statewide.

Finn cited several concerns with the budget process during a speech to his colleagues.

“I still believe that we make many of our decisions based on fear on how those decisions will be received, which causes us as a collective body to err on the side of withholding information,” he said. “This is not how we should be making decisions.”

Finn said he wanted to see a multi-year budgeting process put into place to allow for fiscal planning that runs concurrent with the enrollment planning. Several board members have expressed concern with this in recent weeks, along with concerns over the $896 capital fund.

“Continuing to tell our residents that we are a board and a district that has traditionally chosen teachers over bricks and mortar, is a truly mistaken message to send,” he said. “The days of relaying on bond referenda to relay on bricks and mortar is over. We were elected to a very difficult role, a role that requires us to plan for both teachers and bricks and mortar. We do not get to choose between the two, at least not in perpetuity.”

Finn proposed setting aside more funds for the capital reserve in the current budget. Earlier in the evening, interim BOE Business Administrator Vincent Yaniro said the board is looking to utilize some of the surplus funds for the capital fund in the future. In December, the district’s auditor recommended that the board place more funds into the capital account, which has not been deposited to in a decade. The district had used bond referendums to help fund capital projects, with the state paying up to 40-percent of the debt, a practice the state changed in recent years.

Finn did not announce his yes vote until the end of his remarks.

“I will cast my vote tonight as a yes vote,” Finn said. “Let me be clear this is a yes vote for the future of our school district and our town and should not be confused as an endorsement of the budget planning process. As it stands now, we need a lot of improvement in this area.”

BOE member Gary McCready, who is retiring in May after two terms in office, proposed a way to handle the public information issue. He suggested the board post more information on the district website, including a comparison to past years' budgets. McCready, who serves as a member of the board's finance committee, said this would allow residents to have a better sense of the budget.

Public comments during the meeting ran in favor of the budget. Lisa Kops-Wendel, the co-chairwoman of the Parent Teacher Council’s special education committee, urged the board to vote yes on the budget. She said that her analysis shows the district’s low per-pupil spending rate, along with the budget being 1.3-percent over last year’s budget proposal. Kops-Wendel referred to figures she said she obtained from the website of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which showed the price of gas, milk and cheese rising at a higher rate than the budget.

PTC President Rose Hughes spoke about her work as a realtor and how the school system brings most of her clients to Westfield. She said many of her clients ask if the school district approves the budget annually.

“They want to know they are going into a community that values the education system,” Hughes said. “We want our property values to stay as high as they can right now.”

Resident Steven LeWarn, who during last year’s budget crisis questioned Dolan over whether she would to fund education programs, questioned the board over the capital reserve fund.

“What happens if a boiler blows up tomorrow?” LeWarn asked.

Yaniro said the district would be able to afford such a catastrophe.

“We might have insurance coverage for it,” Yaniro said. “We have a reserve fund of two-percent of our budget, that’s $1.8 million.”

Yaniro said the reserve funds can be used for any non-budgeted expenditure annually.

BOE Vice President Ann Cary, a candidate for reelection, reiterated her strong support for the spending plan, noting the district was not cutting extracurricular or instructional programs.

“I am proud of this budget,” she said. “It is a solid bare bones budget.”

BOE candidate Karym Hoens raised questions about the capital fund, including raising a proposal she said she found in state law, which would allow for the district to transfer unused funds from other areas into the capital fund. She suggested $10,000 remaining in an account from the Washington School boiler replacement from five years ago.

Walker said that the district normally budgeted for unspent funds and said she would need to look into the transfer law. Yaniro said he was unaware of the change to the law and said he would also study the issue.

BOE candidate Mark Friedman questioned Dolan on last year’s budget election results, which had voters passing the plan by a 52-48 margin. Friedman said he did not see the result as being a mandate on the budget.

Dolan said that she saw last year’s vote as a vote of approval, noting that Gov. Chris Christie had spent much of the school election season campaigning against budget approvals. Dolan also said that last year’s budget came in at the then four-percent tax hike cap and that she did not view her role as a political one.

“I am not a politician, I can’t talk in sound bites,” she said. “Someone could do a message better than me, but truthfully they can’t do a budget for this school district better than me. It’s not for the adults with a political message. It’s for the kids.”