Camden board approves staff cuts, school closings

Struggling to make up for a loss of more than $15 million in state aid, the Camden school board last night approved a tentative budget that could eliminate more than 300 positions, including 94 teachers, and close two schools.

In a 5-2 vote, Board President Sara Davis and board member Jose Delgado voted against the proposed budget.

The $337 million plan, which district officials intend to submit to the executive county superintendent today, would close the William F. Powell Elementary School and the South Camden Alternative School.

There is no property tax increase with the proposed budget, district spokesman Bart Leff said.

The budget, which came under board scrutiny last night, also called for cutting guidance counselors and administrators, privatizing all bus transportation and transit aids, curtailing the district's television station operations and eliminating school community coordinators, who help increase parents' involvement.

Also proposed is ending the leasing of the Camden Boys' and Girls Club, which the district's three magnet high schools use for gym classes.

When asked where the students would go for gym, district interim business administrator David Shafter said that was "to be determined."

Board members took exception to cut after cut, but Shafter told them they needed to make up the money.

"This is a very hard budget to discuss and there are a things in this budget that will upset a lot of people, including me," he said.

Just last Wednesday, the Christie administration announced aid cuts to every district in the state. Camden learned its state aid for the coming school year would be reduced 5 percent, the region's lowest rate decrease, but $15.2 million nonetheless.

The month before, Christie imposed a midyear school funding cut, requiring districts to draw from surplus and emergency funds in lieu of receiving promised state aid.

Many districts were counting on using that money in the upcoming year's budget. For Camden, that amounted to $8 million.

"The only good thing about this budget is that it's tentative," said board member Barbara Coscarello. "There are so many variables," she said, including possible savings through retirement or grant money.

Districts were supposed to submit tentative budgets to their executive county superintendents yesterday, but Camden did not make that deadline.

Shafter said a public hearing on the budget will be held March 31 by the Board of School Estimate, the body created under state law to approve the tax levy. The proposed levy is $7.5 million.

Camden would have had to cut $7.5 million from its previous general fund even if the state provided the same funding as last year.

On April 2, 2009, the school board approved a nearly $351 budget for the 2009-10 school year that included $7 million in spending cuts from the previous school year. The 2009-10 budget called for the elimination of 90 positions, 46 of which were vacant. The district's overall state aid was down $1.8 million but school officials knew Camden would be in line for federal stimulus money and most of the people who were let go were brought back from 2009-10.