Ridgewood School System will become one of the most Indebted Districts in New Jersey by 2021

by Steve Kim

Ridgewood NJ, If Ridgewood residents don’t look carefully at the $100 million school referendum in the works, the Ridgewood school system will become one of the most indebted in New Jersey by 2021. That is not how we want Ridgewood to be distinguished because excessive debt reduces future educational funds and therefore quality.

Some facts and points keep in mind.

* Current school debt is $6900 per student.
* If the referendum is passed at $100 million, debt per student will gap up to $24000 per student. Fewer than 23 out of 691 NJ school districts fall into that category.
* If they stagger borrowing as needed, that would likely mean sustained debt of about $12000 per student. Fewer than 113 out of 691 falls into that category.

What needs to happen?

* School needs to get unbiased checks by professionals to make sense of the $30 million discrepancies between EI Associates and LAN assessments.
* Rank order the projects and categorize them into essential and nice to have. Address the essentials. Make sure projects aren’t done for the sake of it… like Ridge’s forced air to water heating conversion. No heating is ever perfect (RHS still has issues after spending a hefty sum in the last referendum) and most commercial buildings use forced air.
* Music rooms should be part of the referendum. Performing Arts Center, definitely not. PAC should not be situated at the high school. Congestion, safety and losing existing parking spots, and needing more parking are some of the key issues. Moreover, PAC cannot be funded using school debt. It also needs a business plan as operating such a facility requires way more planning than Dr. Fishbein thinking the incremental cost would be nil.
* Do the referendum vote in April 2021 with better planning. September 2020 is not good given the timeframe LAN says is needed.
* Borrow only as needed based on a predefined schedule linked to projects to be undertaken and milestone goals achieved. Each tranche of borrow would require approval by the Board and contingent upon preset conditions.
* Reduce contingent funding to 5 pct (required vs 10 percent ascribed) because having too much cushion makes contractors inflate and create additional projects.
* All surplus per phase should be moved to the next phase and returned to the residents at the end rather than cycling to the reserves or doing “related” projects.
* Have mandatory meetings/reporting per phase to the residents on the progress and financial status.

Such items on this list should be defined in a resolution by the Board and voted on before the referendum is voted on by the Board in March 2020.