Butler BOE Approves Preliminary Budget

The proposed $19.8 million budget was approved during a special meeting Thursday night. The proposed budget is an increase of $74,225, or .03 percent, over last year’s $19.7 million budget.

The preliminary budget will now be sent to the Morris County Superintendent. Butler Superintendent Mario Cardinale gave an overview of the budget, including where cuts had to be made in order to keep the budget under the state-mandated 2 percent tax cap.

The total proposed tax levy is $13,518,796. For a home assessed at $252,702, taxes would be $4,527 under the proposed budget, an increase of about $207 over last year's taxes.

“We did see a decrease in enrollment in the district, with fewer students coming in from Bloomingdale,” Cardinale said. “Those enrollment figures could change, but we don’t anticipate that they will.”

After meeting with school principals, who also met with the department heads in their respective schools, Cardinale said the budget the district was originally looking at was over the 2 percent tax cap. The board went through the budget again and made a list of proposed cuts, such as laptop computers and repairs to sports fields. Items such as new computer software and new math textbooks remained in the budget.

“We removed these items from the budget, and when we got our state aid figures, we didn’t get the huge cut we thought we might,” he said. “We actually got about $200,000 more. But even that required that these things come off the list.”

As with many districts in the state, Butler schools received more state aid than anticipated, but it only served to avoid further cuts, Cardinale said. Cardinale said items such as computer software are necessary to help get the district’s test scores higher, and the math books being used at the and schools are nearly 10 years old.

“You may think that math doesn’t change, but the bottom line is that the state-mandated tests the students take every year do change,” he said. “The new textbooks will reflect that.”

The superintendent added that the district has been financially fortunate over the past couple of months to have several people retire who were replaced by lower-salaried staff. The district also reduced some full-time jobs to part-time, and saved some money on the district's health insurance costs.

“So we are sitting with some of those savings in the undesignated fund balance,” Cardinale said. “We were able to move ahead with items like software and math textbooks. And next year’s budget comes in at the 2 percent tax cap and without a significant decrease in personnel.”

The budget also reflects that Cardinale is a full-time superintendent in Butler and not . The district is waiting to hear if that will change.

Board Secretary Debra Naley-Minenna said all personnel salaries were built into the budget with a zero percent increase, except for aides who just settled their contract and agreed to a 2.5 percent increase, half of what they have received in the past.

Cardinale added that the salary lines included in the budget are not in any way a violation of any ongoing negotiations with district personnel.

“They are simply a statement of fact and public information,” he said. “In the course of our negotiations over the next several months, if the agreed-upon amount is greater than zero, it will have to be recouped by either voluntary separations, such as retirements, or involuntary separations where we reduce personnel.”