Failed school budget in town council's hands
Consultants slated to be hired to follow 'paper trail'
BY COLLEEN LUTOLF
Staff Writer

Brick voters rejected on April 19 a 2006-07 school budget totaling $128,911,361 that would have increased school taxes by 11.6 cents per $100 of a home's assessed value.

"There's really nothing you can say," said Schools Superintendent Thomas L. Seidenberger. "You don't want an alibi, you don't want to whine, you don't want to cry, but this is reality."

A total of 7,664 residents turned out at the polls last week, 225 cast absentee ballots, and four voters submitted provisional ballots. The total amount of votes cast was 7,893 - roughly 16.6 percent of Brick's 47,355 registered voters, according to Ocean County Board of Elections figures.

Of Brick's 49 voting districts, 26 districts voted down the budget, with four districts - 17, 21, 24 and 34 - returning tied votes. Almost 55 percent of those who voted opposed the budget's passage, according to election board figures, with 4,163 voting no and 3,428 voting yes.

Seidenberger blamed the failed budget and low voter turnout on stunted state aid at $37.2 million and that schools were closed for the spring holidays - not the contentious interschool board debates over budget allocations in the weeks prior to the board unanimously adopting, 6-0, the budget that sought to raise $84 million through taxation.

"I won't go there," he said. "Let me tell you, being out of school the week before the budget, that didn't allow any momentum to be generated, and that's going to happen again next year. It's difficult to send out reminders when school's closed."

He also did not "go" near explaining why he barred a taped school candidates debate sponsored by the Brick Township Education Foundation and Presidents' Council April 4 from airing on B20 before the school board election.

As mandated by state law, the budget is now sent to the Township Council. The council can leave the budget intact or recommend cuts. If the council and Board of Education can't reach an agreement by May 19 - the date the school budget is due in Ocean County Schools Superintendent Bruce Greenfield's office - the budget will be sent to the state.

"By May 19 we must have an agreement," Seidenberger said. "I'm not worried about that. There are informal conversations going on."

But Seidenberger would not say where he would make the recommended cuts or if any of the 46 staff positions eliminated in the budget through attrition were now under the threat of layoffs.

"I have to sit down with our board committee and try to get a list of priorities, like I always do," he said. "I haven't spoken to the board yet. I know what I would recommend to the board in my own mind, but I want to lay it out with the board first. I don't want to go public with it."

John Talty, the board's Business and Finance Committee chairman, endorsed the budget but said the budget could have been leaner.

"Do I think we could have gotten it lower if we had more time? Yes," Talty said. "[Seidenberger and school Business Administrator Nicholas Puleio] know where all the money is. It's up to us to find out where the money is and what do we have it for. They hide money in there for negotiations. He knows where it is and I don't."

Seidenberger said he's bothered by the implication that "the numbers are out there," he said. "We have almost dead-last pupil expenditures. If we have all the money, why are we dead last? All I can say is that I don't operate like that."

The council was expected to hire at its Tuesday night meeting two consultants - auditor Frank Holman, of the Toms River firm Holman & Frenia, and Frank Marlowe, a retired school superintendent who will review the budget in relation to academics - to aid the council as it pores over school budget figures, township Chief Financial Officer Scott Pezarras said.

The contracts with Holman and Marlowe are not to exceed $9,000 and $9,500, respectively, Pezarras said.

Lately, it has become common practice to hire consultants to aid governing bodies in addressing failed budgets, Pezarras said.

"Marlowe's been hired by Jackson, hired by Lacey," he said. "The council is at a disadvantage because they weren't the ones who crafted the budget. They only have a month to put recommendations forward, and they have to try to go through a document 300 pages thick."

Holman and Marlowe were hired by the council in 2004 - when voters shot down a school budget that carried with it a 15.4-cent increase.

While Pezarras and Township Business Administrator Scott MacFadden sat down with Holman and Marlowe to discuss the school budget document in 2004, this year the consultants will take on a more proactive role in poring over budget figures because MacFadden is out of the office recuperating from surgery and Pezarras is working double duty as CFO and business administrator, Pezarras said.

"I don't have the time to put into it I normally would," he said. "It's a good thing, actually, that we're hiring them."

"Basically, we have 28 days to look at countless line items," Council President Anthony Matthews said. "Someone who does this for a living can figure out the paper trail, where it's going and how to get there."

Matthews described working with Seidenberger and Puleio and the board's Business and Finance Committee in 2004 as a "hostile situation."

"Unfortunately, sometimes people take it personally what they've been working on and what they've been doing," he said. "This is a state statute. I truly believe that since a new board is in place, I think things will go a lot smoother."