CRANBURY: School Board to ask public for help on budget

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The counter point on the Library comment above is that the State already mandates a certain level of funding for the Library that is in excess of its operating costs. So they have a surplus. And since every taxpayer is already paying for the school budget anything that would reduce the costs and thus the tax asessment would help taxpayers regardless of whether they have kids in the school. If there is a way to legally use Library surplus to offset school costs that helps everyone.

So the lawn argument isn't really applicable. The more accurate analogy is you already are helping pay for someone to mow your neighbors lawn and it turns out you are over-paying to mow your own lawn, so if you can use that over-payment to reduce the cost of mowing your neighbor's lawn you have reduced your own expense.

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Again and again in these comments you read "state requires." If we really want meaningful tax reductions the state needs to roll-up its sleeves instead of suggesting its all the work of the local townships.

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[Guest 15]

In the budget, the child study team is $375,000 and guidance an additional $80,000. Is this just the salaries for the school psychologist, social worker and school counselor? Even if these positions are mandated by the state, I find it hard to believe that we can not find qualified people for less money.

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Can we sell something to raise money?
What does the town own that they don't need anymore?

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[Guest]

[/quote]The counter point on the Library comment above is that the State already mandates a certain level of funding for the Library that is in excess of its operating costs. So they have a surplus. And since every taxpayer is already paying for the school budget anything that would reduce the costs and thus the tax asessment would help taxpayers regardless of whether they have kids in the school. If there is a way to legally use Library surplus to offset school costs that helps everyone.

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Is a child study team a resource we can share with another small district, or perhaps a service we can contract with princeton for less money?

[Guest 2]

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You are right. I did not realize 20% of our kids require the on-going services of the child study team. I don't know what a typical student:study team ratio should be. If our set up is typical, we're probably staffed reasonably. If districts twice our size are using the same resources, there is probably an opportunity for shared services.

The other question I have is, is "Resource Program In-class" a job classification for "teacher"? If so, it looks like we have about 7 teachers per grade. Is this typical?

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