West Deptford School Board Sets Public Budget Planning Session

Budget season is upon us, and the West Deptford school board is looking for public opinion as it crunches the numbers for 2012-2013.

With that, the board has scheduled its annual public planning session, set for Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. at the middle school, with an eye toward getting more people involved.

While the process has already started to some degree—individual administrators have put in their budget requests—this is the general public’s first chance to observe and weigh in on what goes into the budget, as it’s shaped and eventually approved next month.

This year, school board President Christopher Strano said the board’s looking for more input from residents—specifically, any ideas on cost savings, given the likelihood of a budget crunch resulting from a pending settlement with Sunoco on property taxes at the Eagle Point refinery complex.

“We will listen to them—it will not be a debate, obviously, because we have to get on with planning a budget,” Strano said.

Those plans could come with state aid information, after Gov. Chris Christie announced increased school funding—to the tune of more than a $200 million increase—at his budget address Tuesday. While the district-by-district numbers have yet to be released, that works out an increase of somewhat less than half a million for every district in the state.

Last year’s West Deptford school budget came in at $43.23 million, roughly 46 percent of the local property tax levy.