Clark BOE Passes Tentative School Budget

The Clark Board of Education approved a tentative school budget that would account for $33,822,661 of expenditures within the district.

The Clark school district received $414,448 in state funding, an additional $325,460 from last year’s budget.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie dubbed 2011 as “the year of education,” increasing state aid for academics across the board. This comes a year after Christie slashed school funding by $830 million, according to numbers released by the governor’s office.

“This budget does include additional state aid amounts of about $330,000 that have helped us meet our needs this year,” said John Bolil, business administrator for the Clark Board of Education.

Bolil presented a budget Tuesday night, which included taxes to be raised by $29,409,044 in the budget. The budget was approved by seven of the 10-member board – two members abstained and one member was absent from the meeting.

No audience members questioned the proposed budget when Board President Jill Curran opened the floor.

The raise in taxes represents less than one percent – or three tax points - more than the current year’s budget, said Kenneth Knops, superintendent of the Clark School District.

“You can imagine with all the programs that you want to fund and with all the built in costs, keeping a budget to .83 percent is a difficult task,” Knops said.

Clark raised taxes $36 per tax payer last year in light of state-wide education budget cuts because Clark lost $671,106 in state funding between 2009 and 2010.

Despite the cut, no educational programs were cut during the 2010-2011 school year, and it is predicted that all academic programs will remain in this budget as well.

A public meeting that will detail the budget will be held March 22 at 7 p.m., where specific allocations will be discussed. The budget will also be presented in each individual school in Clark to each school’s Parent-Teacher Association.