Camden schools budget clears final hurdle with more for charters

The influx of charter schools into Camden is continuing to drain more money each year from the city's burdened Board of Education.

On Thursday, a $7.4 million tax levy - the same as the previous year's - was approved by the Board of School Estimates, the group charged with approving the city's contribution to the board's budget.

That move put the final seal on the district's 2013-14 allocation. The board unanimously approved the $326.5 million operating budget last month.

Although next year's budget is about $10 million more than for this academic year, the board expects that 95 staff positions will be eliminated for 2013-14, equaling about $7.4 million in savings.

It is not yet known how many district employees will be laid off, since some of the reductions will be achieved through retirements and not filling vacancies, said David Shafter, the district's fiscal monitor.

One of the biggest cost centers this year is the allocation of money to charter schools. Close to $66 million is expected to be transferred to district charters in 2013-14, compared with the $52 million transferred this academic year. Nine charter schools operate in the city, with five more preliminarily approved to open in the fall.

On Thursday, the Camden Community Charter School held a groundbreaking ceremony at its Eighth and Linden Streets site in North Camden, east of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. The school plans to open in September with about 300 students in kindergarten through grade five. The new school will provide free computers and free in-home Internet to its students, officials said.

The Camden Community Charter School is modeled on Pennsylvania's largest charter, Chester Community Charter School. The Camden school will be managed by CSMI Education Management, the company that manages the Chester school.

Not all five preliminarily approved charters are guaranteed to get final state approval by the end of the summer. Even if they do, their enrollments might change from what the state and district have predicted. So the $66 million allocation for the estimated 5,000 students to be enrolled in charters could end up being less. About 16,000 students attend Camden schools, including charters.

At a Tuesday school board work session, interim Superintendent Reuben Mills said he wanted to do everything possible to keep students enrolled in traditional public schools in the district. That starts, he said, by making them better.

"If we don't make moves to [improve] these schools, we are going to lose more and more students," he said, adding that about 900 students could be lost next year when the new charters open and existing ones continue to expand.

Based on academic-achievement scores in 2011, 23 of the district's 26 schools ranked among the 75 worst-performing in New Jersey. The district was then assigned to work with one of the state's new Regional Achievement Centers to improve the failing schools. That also takes a financial toll because the district will have to bear an as yet undetermined cost for the RAC employees, said school board finance chair Barbara Coscarello.

School board member Sean Brown, who also serves on the Board of School Estimates, mentioned the RAC's price tag as one of the challenges in shaping this year's budget.

Brown applauded some new items on the budget, including $630,000 for security cameras to be installed in schools. He also mentioned fire-code updates to the district buildings, which will cost about $1 million. About $4 million will be invested in construction projects, including more than $1 million to replace the roof at East Camden Middle School.