After more state aid cuts, the Hoboken Board of Education approved a roughly $83.8 million budget that comes with a school tax levy up 9.95 percent from last year.
The budget was approved unanimously (9-0) at the Hoboken BOE’s May 7th meeting, after the spending plan was introduced in March, prior to a formal budget hearing on April 28th.
“The total 2020-2021 budget is $83.8 million which includes the K-12 district budget, funding for the charter schools, and funding for the Pre-K program,” Hoboken BOE President Sharyn Angley said in an email.
“The portion of this budget that comes from local taxes is $53.1 million and is referred to as the local tax levy. This is the amount that is subject to change and that will impact the local taxpayer.”
She continued that “significant state aid loss,” a 8.59 decrease from last year (or $849,359 less) – according to data released by the New Jersey Department of Education in February – and “dramatic enrollment growth” led to a larger than usual tax levy hike.
“Per the city, the average assessed property value in Hoboken is $524,500. At this level, the impact of the tax levy increase is estimated to be an additional $252 for the year,” Angley added.
According to public records, the K-12 student enrollment was 2,134 last year and will be up to 2,514 in the 2020-2021 scholastic year.
The levy is up about $5 million and state aid is down $850,000 so blaming the increase on loss of state aid is complete BS. This is just a giant cash grab by the tax and spend teachers union loving lefties who control the school board using the Chinese communist coronavirus as a convenient excuse.
Read more about Chinese communism every day at Hoboken Horse where it’s always 1982 and Reagan is always president!
The property owners in Hoboken end up picking up even a bigger the tab for all the children in HHA and taxpayer subsidized housing.
I don’t think the increased number of enrolled students is coming from the families of the HHA. And the increase in enrollment in the past several years has not been from those families when you analyze the numbers.
As long as Ravi Bhalla continues to pander to the big developers who happen to fund his campaigns, more over development will take place and more teachers will have to be hired. He will continue to give tax abatements that exclude taxes to pay for schools and force the small homeowners to carry the costs caused by massive buildings that send kids to schools but pay no school taxes. Thank Ravi for your tax bills and thank his Planning and Zoning Boards for rubber stamping his massive over development.
How much of the budget is earmarked for charter schools? Why does a Mile Square city need THREE charter schools?
Maybe THREE charters is a luxury Hoboken can no longer afford.
Attacking charter schools wasn’t a smart strategy back in the day and it’s even dumber now.
The article says that the bulk of the tax increase – almost $4 million is due to increased enrollment. Unless that increase is in the charters, which is impossible since their enrollment is capped by law, this tax increase has zero to do with charters.
It certainly would be interesting to know for planning purposes in what grades the increased enrollment is expected and whether those projections will result in a reduction in the school choice program that imports students from out of town, mostly from JC, funded by revenue provided by the State.
Does anyone know if that info is publicly available anywhere?