Persi to council: Good luck with budget cuts Council, new school board to meet early next month BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer Brick Township Council members will sit down with the new Board of Education on May 6 to consider cuts to the failed school budget. And Superintendent of Schools Melindo A. Persi, who spent months at large and small public meetings discussing the $141,104,370 budget, wishes them well. Persi, who said before the election recently the budget was "bare bones" already, just shook his head when he was asked where cuts could be made. "Cut out second grade?" he said at a recent interview in his Hendrickson Avenue office. "We've eliminated everything we could." Persi was also upset that voters turned down a ballot question that would have set aside $150,000 for a schools security chief and secretary. Voters resoundingly rejected the schools security chief question by a vote of 6,322 no votes to 1,517 yes votes. "I think it was ridiculous," he said. "God forbid something happens. Then you'll see the hue and cry." He held up 50-plus pages of the 1999 school security memorandum of agreement that local police departments and Boards of Education are mandated to sign each year. "It's got stuff in here we are supposed to be doing, but we are not," he said. "Right now, if we had a disaster, I have to get on the phone and call people. That was chump change to feel secure." "The people have spoken," Persi said. "It's done." Finding places to cut is going to be "very, very tough," Council President Ruthanne Scaturro said. "I don't think our school system is extravagant in any way. I think we are suffering from years and years of not having budgets passed." Scaturro plans to appoint a subcommittee of Councilman Brian DeLuca, who served on the school board until he won his council seat last November, Councilman Anthony Matthews and Councilman Daniel Toth. She had hoped that Brick voters would approve the tax levy. "I'd rather have the people say what they want," she said. "They want us to cut something. It's our obligation to make the cuts." The failed budget called for the closing and sale of the Laurelton School on Route 88 and the relocation of its students to the Educational Enrichment Center (EEC) on Hendrickson Avenue. The EEC students would be moved to the Primary Learning Center, which was also slated to be sold. Kindergarten students who would have attended the PLC will now attend classes in their home schools. "We are operating under the premise it is closed," Persi said. "It can't be open unless they come up with $1.9 million. Where do we get $1.9 million?" While the budget cut 22 staff positions, it also included enhancements in the high school curriculum, the replacement of textbooks and improvements to the district's technology. The Brick school district has been without an assistant superintendent of curriculum for several years, which Persi finds unbelievable. The current board supported the position. "This is like having a bus without a driver. Why would a board ever cut out an assistant superintendent of curriculum? An assistant superintendent is absolutely critical." Persi wasn't surprised the budget failed, despite the months he and the board spent presenting it to the public. "I didn't anticipate it passing," he said. "Two years in a row is too much to hope for." Voters turned down the budget's tax levy, which would have raised the school tax rate 11.1 cents for each $100 of assessed valuation. It would have cost a homeowner with a home assessed at the average value an additional $148.63 this year. The vote on the tax levy was 4,587 no votes to 3,289 yes votes, according to the Ocean County Clerk's Office. They also turned down a second ballot question that would have appropriated 478,500 for technology upgrades. The special ballot questions needed 60 percent of votes cast to pass. The Board of Education's reorganization meeting was slated for April 29, after the Bulletin went to press. As of press time, theMay 6 meeting between the Township Council and Board of Education was still on. "It will give them some time to kind of look it over and make recommendations, before we start slicing away," Scaturro said. "They took six months to make the budget. Now in 30 days we have to make the cuts."