Pay attention to the Edison School Districts 2% Tax Levy Cap - there's a Loophole Called the Cap Bank

 Well, you remember that 2% hard cap they put in year's ago that's not really hard. There are exceptions for increases in healthcare, pensions and enrollment. and you had to get voters approval to raise it above 2%.

But who is anyone kidding? There's a loophole called the Cap Bank. If you use less than 2% in a previous year, you can exceed 2% in subsequent years (3 year limitation) without voter approval.

Now, why is that important? Because this School District has been flushed with state aid and mis-spending all that money over the past few years and for sure, that state aid won't continue over the next 3 years.

Here's the State Aid for the past few years:

Now, they like to tout over there on Mythomania Lane that they held the tax levy flat over the past few years but what they don't tell you is the difference is always being banked to use in a subsequent year. 

So, as soon as that State Aid starts to dwindle, and you know it will - they will go to the 'Banked Cap' where the only thing that is banked is the ability to raise property taxes by more than 2% in future years without voter approval - a deferred property tax increase if you will.

And we still haven't properly addressed the Overcrowding problem.

Here's the Cap Bank Eligibility on Page 29 of their 367 million Bloated and Out-of-Control $pending 'User-Unfriendly' 2024-25 Preliminary School Budget:

That's some $25 million sitting there that can hit your property tax bills over the 2% Cap without your approval over the next 3 years.

Anyhoo, don't you just like these loopholes to try and fool the taxpayers?

You can't have a humongous Staffing number in the Preliminary School Budget for 2024-25 and Not provide any Headcount information

Well, they are no longer putting out school budgets where you can see the detail behind each line item and going solely with the DoE 'User Friendly' format - which is more of an overview and isn't so detailed or user friendly.

Be that as it may, you might want to pay attention to this budget, albeit lacking sufficient detail to make sense of any of the numbers including the changes from the prior year, especially with no headcount analysis for the single largest expenditure in the school budget - Salaries.

You really can't understand if the Salary dollars in this budget or the changes from last year's budget make any sense, without a corresponding Salary & Headcount analysis by department.

For example, in this school budget for Principals/ Assistant Principals/Prog Dir it has $7,370,892 for the Actual 2022-23, $7,744,954 for the Revised 2023-24 Budget and $7,970,674 for the Proposed 2024-25 Budget. 

Now, how can you know how they went from $7,744,954 to $7,970,674 without knowing what the changes were in dollars and heads?

You won't know unless they provide the changes and they're not going to with this school budget - I know, I asked. 

There has to be an analysis of Salaries in dollars and heads that bridges the gap between the prior year and the Proposed budget that shows salary and wage increases, new hires, transfers-in & other additions, retirements, resignations, terminations, transfers-out and other decreases.

Without that information, you'll never know if their proposed budget for salaries is satisfactory or unsatisfactory.

So, the latest Salary information available from a request for the current salary file was received on 1/4/24.  This file is by name, location, department, title and salary. This will at least show you the current headcount and dollars by title that should help in understanding where they are today in a more detailed manner.

Here's what that file looks like by Salary Range:

Here's the breakdown by Title from that file which listed 2,296 employees for a total of $173,044,900:

Anyhoo, at least you got to actually see their Preliminary School Budget for 2024-25 before they adopt it but this 'User Friendly' format won't give you what you need to know about what's in this school budget - especially with Staffing.

Edison Board of Education $367 million 2024-25 FY School Budget

 Well, here's the County Super approved Preliminary School Budget for FY 2024-25. Public meeting for this budget is scheduled for April 30, 2024. Thought you might want to see what they've proposed in enough time to review before they adopt it. They are no longer putting out budgets where you can see the detail behind each line item and going solely with the DoE 'User Friendly' format - which isn't so detailed or user friendly.

Be that as it may, you might want to pay attention to this budget, albeit lacking sufficient detail to make sense of any of the numbers including the changes from the prior year, especially with no headcount analysis for single largest expenditure in the budget - Salaries.

Recognize when comparing this year to last year they're not comparing to last year's budget. On February1st they use the actual numbers at that time, which has always been the source of the 'Staffing Shell Game' where any heads they hired between July1 and January 1 were never disclosed to the Public in their budgets. They don't have to worry about being called out with that practice anymore since they no longer show any headcount analysis - for the original budget, the actuals on February 1 and any new heads in the current budget.

Anyhoo, they'll be a lot more to say about all the numbers in this budget before the April 30, 2024 adoption meeting including all the budget games they play as well as the CY tax levy and tax rate for 2024 calculations in this budget.

Looks like another Bloated, Out-of-Control $pending School Budget being sent down for the County Super's approval

 Wow, it's one thing for the Board of Mythomania, aka Board of Hoarders, Board of Ed-Dems, Board of Dysfunction etc. to do their usual and stick it to the taxpayers but this year takes the cake. Not even a minuscule reduction in the school tax rate for the taxpayers with all that money being hoarded and wasted over there on Mythomania Lane.

Don't you want to see what the heck they're doing with all that money? This year they received $94,373,215 in state aid, which was a $20,865,217 or 28.38% increase over last year's $73,507,998. That's just the state aid and doesn't count all that $40-50 million or so they've been hoarding over the years.

Don't you want to ask what the heck they're doing with all that money since they're certainly not solving the Overcrowding problem with all these piecemeal projects.

Here's the summary they show you of the actual preliminary school budget they're sending down to the County Super after tomorrow night's vote, which according to the state calendar was supposed to be there today. 

Be that as it may, from this we can't see what's actually in the preliminary school budget but we can come up with what this budget means to your property taxes - and it's pretty pathetic.

According to this summary, their appropriations are going up to $367,313,416 and the taxes to be raised from this budget are $253,013,168. This equates to a Calendar Year School tax Rate of $3.171, which is down 2-cents from last year's $3.191.

Now before you think that's a good thing, recognize this; the bulk of that 2-cent decrease in the school tax rate is solely due to the increase in the Rateables, which has nothing to do with their $pending, and that $259,375 you see as a $pending decrease isn't really a decrease. It represents the flow over into this year of erroneously overstating last year's school tax levy by $518,750, which erroneously raised the school tax rate to $3.191 over the correct $3.184.

So, now the erroneous over charge in the school tax levy grows to  $778,125 ($518,750 + $259,375). It's bad enough that they won't throw the taxpayers a bone by reducing the school tax rate but it's quite another to be erroneously over charging them $778,125 to boot.

If you live in that mythical house assessed at $182,400, then here's your school taxes and whopping school tax cut. If you don't live in that mythical house assessed at $182,400, then take your home's assessed value and divide it by 100 and multiply that number by 3.171 to get your total school taxes or by .02 to get your whopping school tax reduction.

It's too important not to see what's in this school budget and having to wait until after it's adopted by the School board on April 30th is unacceptable. With school budgets working their way up to $400 million, it needs to be put in the public domain after it's approved by the County Super, which I understand can be no later that April 19th. Everyone has a right to have a chance to review the budget and the be able to ask poignant questions at their April 30th adoption meeting. Anything less would be a total and complete lack of transparency and exclusion of any community involvement.

Further, enough already with not providing a Staffing schedule (Headcount) by department with the school budget. You can't follow the change in the Staffing dollars or know if they're correct or make any sense of them without seeing the corresponding change in the Headcount. This will force them to stop with the budgeting games like 'Breakage' and the 'Staffing shell game' and make them disclose what they're actually doing with what is largest expenditure in the school budget - Staffing. Don't accept a school budget with staffing numbers without a corresponding Headcount schedule.

Anyhoo, don't be foolish and let them vote on this school budget on April 30th without first showing it to you.

State School Aid - Fiscal Year 2025 K-12 State School Aid

Just saw the state school aid for 2024 (FY 2025):

By School District - Middlesex County:

 

Middlesex County:

Recognize that last year's school tax rate of 3.191 was erroneously overstated by $518,750 (should of been $3.184) by double counting the debt service and will further inpact this year's school tax rate by half of that $518,750 or $259,375, which brings the total overstatement of the school tax rate by $778,125.

Anyhoo, Edison is up another $20.9 million over last year's $73.5 million. Let's hope they $pend it wisely in their 2024-25 Preliminary School Budget due down to the County Super by March 20, 2024. They also might want to reschedule their March 21, 2024 meeting to approve the Preliminary School Budget due by March 20, 2024.

Finally got a Response to a December 17th Request for the Current salaries in Ordinance O.2197-2023 Adopted December 27th - on January 11, 2024

 Well, unlucky for me that we couldn't know what these positions were currently being paid before the Council voted to adopt these new salary ranges (See the December 29th Post).

Silly me, you'd think that if someone was asking you to consider raising the salary ranges, the first question you'd ask would be - How Much do the Positions Currently Pay to see if the proposed changes make any sense?

But nah, not this Council. Didn't hear anyone ask any questions about that in any meetings and when I tried to reach out to some of them, they couldn't or wouldn't tell me the current salaries for the positions listed in the Ordinance.

Hence, the OPRA Request on December 17th, which seems like more than enough time before the December 27th vote to look up the salaries of 17 individuals, but nah - on the 7th day at 4:03 PM they responded by saying they need an extension to January 11, 2024.

Having now looked at what they eventually sent as the current salaries, it's easy to see why they didn't want to public to see any of this. It raises a whole bunch of questions that should of been asked and answered before the vote - but weren't.

Look at this schedule (below) which compares the current salaries to the old and new salary ranges. Under the Ordinance adopted (which excludes those positions in red) there are only 3 positions that had salaries at the top of the old salary range and required an adjustment. Only 1 position was even close to reaching the High under the old salary range in the near future yet they all were substantially increased.

What's that all about - would of been nice to of heard an explanation before the Council vote? 

And what's going on with the two non-employees? The finance guy has a contract for $201,000 and the change to the High was to $195,000. Not for nothing but we pay the Director of Finance $201,000 and we pay a CFO $144,200 - that $345,200 and from what I can see, we have serious deficiencies listed in the 2022 Audit report? Have to get a copy of that report.

And what's with the Planning guy? He has a contract for $130,000 but they pay him $175,000? That doesn't concern anyone on the Council? And they issue and adopt a new contract for that $175,000 on January 10, 2024.

And seriously, what going on with the change in the Director of Parks and Recreation position? The old range went from $110,000 to $160,000 but they increased that $160,000 to $195,000, and the position is currently only paying $132,613 - Yikes!

There's obviously more going on here than just the arbitrary nonsense about being comparable to what other towns do and no one is willing to tell you.Who cares what other town do? Every town is different and have their own idiosyncrasies to deal when hiring .We have enough problems worrying about what this town does.

Here's the 17 positions with the Current Salaries provided:

You know, these are questions you'd think our Council would be asking and explaining to the public before they voted. If they had been helpful in getting the current salaries at least the public could of asked the questions before the vote - but they weren't. Unfortunately, this Council has long relinquished their responsibility over the purse strings and any modicum of transparency.

Anyhoo, who'd of thought 7 days isn't quite enough time to look up the salaries of 17 individuals?

Edison School District's Current Salary File

 Well, unlike a December 17th OPRA Request for 17 public salaries relating to an upcoming December 27th Council Vote on the 'Not to Exceed Ordinance' over there at 100 Oligarchy Blvd. with a response on December 28th which was the 7th day at 4:03PM - and the response, the day after the Council Vote, was for an extension to January 11, 2024. Guess they need more than 7 Days to look up the salaries of 17 employees.

A Request for the School District's Current Salary file with 2,296 employees was returned in a day. 

Kudos to the School District BA Jonathan Toth for the quick response for public information.

From that file, a summary by salary range was added and also a table that you can use to sort the data and drill-down by any of the column headings. Unfortunately, this Blog can't handle Excel drop-down lists so I can only show screenshots of the file here. If anyone would like to have the Excel file, just email and you're welcome to it.

Anyway, this Current Salary file lists 2,296 employees with Total Salaries of $173,044,900 with some very interesting additions.

Here's a Summary by Salary Range:

Here's a Sort by Title for Principals:

Here's the Top 20 Salaries:

Anyhoo, it's helpful and important to know what makes up the largest expenditure in the School Budget.