To the Editor:
Thank you, Superintendent Treece and President Galiano, for issuing a direct public response to our July letter regarding the upcoming September 17 vote on the $87 million HVRSD referendum. In that letter, we urged Valley residents to Vote NO, and we promised to provide additional details.
Our rationale in that letter was simple: We are Taxed Enough Already in Hopewell Valley (www.TEAHV.org). We showed that despite a steady decline in enrollment over the past 16 years, per pupil spending in Hopewell Valley schools continues to soar (currently $26K per student), eclipsing every other municipality in Mercer County.
We reasoned that, much like families having to prioritize spending during tough economic times, the District should start over and send a referendum to the public that is streamlined to address both taxpayer and “necessary” educational needs.
In their response, Superintendent Treece and President Galiano indicated that our concerns are “long on complaints and short on solutions.” As elected officials with decades of experience between us, we understand their position and offer three concrete recommendations to address the perceived shortcomings in this referendum.
1. Remove from the referendum – nonessential projects that don’t qualify for state aid. According to the HVRSD breakdown of the projects as submitted to the NJ Department of Education (DOE), only about $60 million of the projects qualify for a 40% state rebate – the rest we pay for entirely and should be considered “nice to haves” and pushed off to another referendum.
2. Remove from the referendum – projects that have a separately committed funding source. The District maintains reserves expressly set aside for capital projects such as those named in the referendum. Further, HVSRD holds more in reserves as a proportion of its total budget than all other Mercer County districts. Rather than charge $87 million to Valley taxpayers, reallocate some of the “reserve” millions for their intended purpose.
In its July 18 statement, the Hopewell Township Committee publicly committed some of its PILOT dollars “to offset any costs of improvements at Bear Tavern Elementary School that may, at least in part, stem from any additional students that will come from our court-approved affordable housing plan.” Bear Tavern projects submitted to NJDOE in this referendum represent a little under $25 million. At least some portion of that should be subsidized by Hopewell Township. Let’s not double dip by charging taxpayers as well.
3. Remove from the referendum – projects that don’t provide a documented educational return on investment (ROI.) Last year, the district spent $887,000 to simply replace the turf at Central High School. This “routine maintenance” does not include the tremendous costs associated with the original design, engineering, ground prep, and installation of a new turf field. Their referendum seeks to install two additional turf fields! Given the CHS turf field lifespan (8-10 years), taxpayers will still be paying for the initial installation costs of the new fields when the “routine maintenance” of turf replacements come due. Some have suggested that “renting out the turf field to the public” should help offset the maintenance costs. When determining ROI, please consider that the existing CHS turf field is currently available for rent, and use it as a guide for how much of its rental income can offset the $887,000 maintenance cost.
These are three concrete steps we offer to improve the HVRSD referendum proposal – but only if you vote “no” on this one first in orderto give the District the opportunity to submit a more reasonable version that prioritizes student learning without exploiting the taxpayer.
Bonus suggestion – reduce the District’s massive per pupil costs by cutting administrative expenses. Surprisingly, HVRSD spends among the least per pupil on its elementary students while having the highest per pupil cost in Mercer County. One explanation for this paradox is that HVRSD also spends the most per pupil on Central Administration, both absolutely and as a percentage of its total cost.
Excessive administrative overhead costs account for over $7,000 per pupil. Recently, the District spent almost $2 million on just window replacements and exterior paving on its Pennington Administration Building. And this amount does not even include the facility’s heating and water line replacements, HVAC and security upgrades.
It is high time to take a long hard look at what the District can do to reduce administrative overhead without reducing the quality of our students’ educational outcomes.
To the public, we urge you to go to the Pennington Fire Company at 120 Broemel Place on September 17th and VOTE NO. To the BOE and administration, we respectfully request that you consider our suggestions, cancel and resubmit a new referendum question.
John Hart and Vanessa Sandom,
former Hopewell Township Mayors and long-time Hopewell Valley residents
