SHREWSBURY – The borough’s elected leaders are taking a close look at a school funding formula they say has left their town overtaxed and “forgotten” at the state level.
But right now they want to know if they are paying more than their fair share to send students to Red Bank Regional High School.
Mayor Erik Anderson and the borough council have instructed the borough attorney to examine the town’s financial relationship with Red Bank Regional High School and to provide recommendations on how funding should be allocated among the three sending districts of Shrewsbury, Little Silver and Red Bank.
“We’re not looking to make winners and losers,” Anderson told The Two River Times last week, “but it’s something that needs to be discussed at a minimum. We’re taxed at a higher rate than the other boroughs and it isn’t fair. We’re pushing forward to protect our interests.”
Anderson said the governing body is considering a resolution requesting that the Red Bank Regional Board of Education implement measures to address the uneven tax rates facing the three sending districts.
However, this official action is pending the delivery of budget information for the 2019-20 school year, which will be available soon.
“As soon as we get the budget info for the coming year, we’ll move forward with (the resolution),” Anderson told The Two River Times. “I’m hopeful the board will listen and work with us to address the issues facing our borough. But there are real implications of that. Someone would have to pay more. And that’s a tough ask.”
According to Anderson, for this 2018-19 school year, Shrewsbury is paying $28,474 per student, compared to Little Silver’s price tag of $24,790 and Red Bank’s per pupil fee of $19,063.
Red Bank Regional’s three previous school budgets show Shrewsbury as the only one of the three sending districts to see steady annual increases in both its estimated general fund school tax rate and its school tax levy.
Beginning with the 2016-17 school year through this current session, the borough’s estimated tax rate rose from .4609 to .4885. The bump coincided with an overall increase in the levy from $5.15 million to $5.62 million.
Over that same three-year stretch the tax rate in Little Silver dropped from .4232 to .4159. The overall tax burden rose slightly from $6.92 million to $7.05 million.
Red Bank has seen the most fluctuation. For the 2017-18 school year the borough’s tax rate fell from .4291 to .4232, but that number rose to .4422 this year. The borough also absorbed a tax levy increase from $8.93 million to $9.38 million in 2018-19.
Red Bank Regional superintendent Louis B. Moore said the Red Bank Regional school board had a positive meeting about the topic with municipal government leaders from each district in late 2018.
Moore added that he hopes the lines of communication among all three sending districts can remain open and clear as the communities work toward a solution.
“I completely understand the point of view of Shrewsbury. But we have to keep working together,” Moore said to The Two River Times in a Feb. 20 interview. “This is a challenge facing all three towns.”
Moore said he knew Mayor Anderson, Mayor Pasquale Menna of Red Bank and Mayor Robert Neff of Little Silver have all been supportive of RBR. “And we have to continue to work on this,” he said.
Anderson said the governing body’s second big schooling concern is appropriate funding for the Shrewsbury Borough School, which houses preschool and kindergarten programs, as well as elementary school and middle school students.
“We’re the borough that’s forgotten by Trenton,” Anderson said Tuesday evening at the borough’s regularly scheduled council meeting, where he asked attending residents to continue to contact their elected officials in the state Assembly.
“For things to change it’s going to take us making noise. It’s going to take banging on pots and pans and standing on tabletops. We need you to write, call and continue to put pressure on our elected officials. And ask them why we continue not to receive funding like other districts,” Anderson added.
This school year, Anderson said the Shrewsbury Borough School had an operating budget of $8.3 million and noted that just over $286,000 of that budget was offset by state aid.
“That equates to about $550 per pupil. There are other communities around Monmouth County that are receiving $10,000 to $15,000 in state aid per student,” Anderson said.
The mayor, a 42-year-old lifelong borough resident and attorney who was elected to a four-year term in January, said Shrewsbury and communities similar to it are victims of their own success.
The state’s school funding formula is designed to provide more state aid to Abbot school districts, or school districts with a greater need for fund monies to support infrastructure, education and facilities.
Some districts, like Red Bank Regional ($1.17 million) and Shrewsbury ($286,834) saw their state sum remain the same.
Red Bank Public Schools and the Little Silver school district were two of 139 districts that benefitted from this redistribution of school funding. Red Bank’s aid jumped by 47.72 percent, from $3.75 million to $5.54 million. Little Silver saw a 23.5 percent increase from $398,966 to $492,709.
“Our students are doing well so they receive less funding. How much better could they be doing if they received funding that allowed for modern classrooms,” Anderson asked.
