photo by Boyd Loving
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, the realty of school budgeting is that many prices of the budget puzzle are not covered by the 2% cap.
False Claim #3 (continued): “If our Board of Education develops a budget that calls for a school tax increase greater than 2%, a public vote is required on that budget.”
TRUTH: To be clear, if our local elections are moved to November, there is no public vote on the school budget. The so-called 2% cap is only on a portion of the school budget There are high priced expenses, like health insurance cost increases, that are exempt from that 2%. In truth, the budget could double, triple, or more over that 2% cap without ever triggering a vote. Case in point, 2018. Our Board of Education elections were in November that year, so there was no budget vote despite a 3.62% increase. That extra 1.62% above the so-called 2% cap represented $1.5 million charged to the taxpayers for the 2018-2019 school year. And once in place, that extra $1.5 million is charged each and every year going forward, compounded by each year’s tax increase. That budget proposal was very vocally disapproved by residents and carried by the affirmative votes of only 3 out of 5 board members.
