Board Of Education Approves Preliminary Budget for 2011-12 School Year

The Montville Board of Education unanimously approved a preliminary budget for the 2011-2012 school year at its meeting on Tuesday night.

The public will vote on $67,763,621 proposed budget on April 27.

Superintendent Dr. Paul Fried said that he felt the district was in “a good place” with its current budget proposal.

“We’ve restored the losses that were important for us to restore,” he said.

Included in the proposal are several previously eliminated positions and services that have been reinstated as a result of the nearly $670,000 the district received in state aid last week.

“Approximately 20 percent of our overall state aid was returned to us,” Fried said. “That is some very good news.”

Among the previously eliminated items that would be restored if the budget passes are club funding for the elementary schools, a district-wide increase in technical support, a fine arts teacher at the high school and funds for a computer lab at Woodmont school.

Fried said in his budget presentation to the board that the district would focus on teacher effectiveness in the coming year, calling it the “most important part of student education.”

“Our district goals are to put students first, hold our students to high expectations and have the most effective teaching possible,” he said.

According to Fried, the proposed budget approved by the board will maintain class size in all levels of education through the district, as well as maintain staffing in the elementary schools, programs at all levels and add two freshman sports to the high school.

The approved budget also allows for the creation of a freshman studies course at the high school, aimed at helping incoming ninth-grade students deal with the transition from middle school to high school, as well as more language options for middle school students.

“The initiatives we are bringing forward, the freshman studies and change in modern language, these are opportunities for us to work together going forward and to develop a greater sense of thinking ahead to what we want to do to benefit students,” he said.

Business administrator Jim Tevis said that the proposed budget comes in below the state mandated 2 percent cap by $300k and would cost about $175 per household based on the township’s current average. He said that number represents a 1.5 percent increase in the local tax levy, a three-year low for the school district.

“It’s important to point out that our average over the last three years has been about three percent, or $212 per household,” he said. “Only one year in the last eight has seen a lower increase in tax levy.”

Fried said he hopes to present the budget to different parent groups in the township during the coming weeks, as well as to the district’s employees.

The approved budget presentation can be view at the district’s website or attached to this story.