At last night Board Of Education (BOE) meeting, the Board unanimously passed a $32,932,801 budget for the school year 2015-16. Out of the nearly $33 million budget, $20,454,668 of that will be coming from property taxes.
The nearly $12.5 million difference comes from various forms of revenue including transportation aid, special education aid, various other forms of state aid, Medicaid reimbursement, tuition paid to the school from students in other districts, and excess surplus. On the levy side, $688,100 that will be coming from taxpayers will be to pay off debt service. This is the amount that has to be paid off, like a mortgage, on an annual basis for the expansion of the school district that was voted for by a referendum in 2005.
The Roselle Park School District (RPSD), even though it has moved its elections to November, still operates on a school calendar year, not a January to December calendar. This means that half of last year’s budget along with half of this budget will be used to calculate the increase in 2015 property taxes for a household assessed at $65,000 – the standard currently used for such calculations. The increase is estimated to be around $300 which translates into the school portion of 2015 property taxes being an average $4,390.10. This year’s increase is almost a hundred dollars more than last year’s increase in the school budget which was $207.
A copy of the full 2015-16 school budget is available below along with a copy of the 2014-15 RPSD budget.