VIDEO: School District State Monitor: This District has a Revenue Problem, Not a Spending Problem

azzara meeting tls“This district has a revenue problem, not a spending problem,” State Monitor Michael Azzara stated during a Board of Education meeting last night.

Azzara made the statement while explaining the tentative budget numbers and the programs that are still in question – including courtesy busing, as earlier reported, as well as special education funding.

But the statement was especially shocking to Board members, because the Monitor was initially installed in Lakewood by the Commissioner due to the District’s financial problems. On top of that, a Forensic Accountant was installed as well to investigate if the problems were mismanagement or due to the fact that Lakewood is it a very unique district the state formula just doesn’t work.

“After one year in Lakewood and going through all the expenses, the monitor says all the expenses are legitimate,” an official commented about Azzara’s statement.

As it stands now, courtesy busing is not included in the 2015-2016 budget.

To offset those costs, Azzara last night proposed a referendum of $5.6 million. Should the referendum go up for vote, it would need to be voted on by June in order for busing to begin with the new school year.

The Board voted against the budget, but it was overridden by Azarra.

The proposed budget numbers can still change before May, when the hard budget for the 2015-2016 school year is due.

[TLS]

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12 COMMENTS

  1. results of investigation point to a revenue problem. in other words this means the state formula for distributing funds is not working for our community. not that the BOE is stealing or misusing money.
    Allow a quick presentation to understand what I think happens with our tax money.
    Lakewood real estate taxes which are very high and amount to many hundreds of millions of dollars are collected from the home owners each year, this is a fact.
    the money is sent to TRENTON the state capital and then based on some formula of how many public school students attend the PS system in each locale is sent back to the town it came from with surplus going to other areas and districts.
    this means Lakewood taxes can be subsidizing schools in Camden Newark Jackson etc..
    to fix this we need to register in the public school system – show Trenton 50k more children attend Lakewood PS system and watch how quickly the formula changes-
    in short we are saving them millions of dollars by not using the PS system that we are entitled to use.
    yet they short change us by not providing “courtesy” bussing.
    from the funds they collect from us to send the rest of the town to the schools they attend.
    they don’t want to change the “formula” until they must.

  2. 1) Why did it take Mr Azzara a full year to realize that Lakewood is legitimate?
    2) I fell that $11000.00 I’m paying for property tax should help my kids be entitled to courtesy bussing.
    3) Why is it that by every BOE meeting Mr Azzara overrides the interests of the board? Do the people of Lakewood have any say? Is this a democracy? Does Mr Azzare have our best interests in mind? Surely doesn’t seem so!!

  3. Revenue Problem, huh? You know what that means! They need more Revenue. And you know where that will come from. Hang on to your wallets. Once again. Right now most of us are paying over $10000 yearly to have the garbage picked up. It’s going to go up again. What a disgrace.

  4. @ HOROWITZ
    Mr. Azzara apparently only knows the way of force by overriding our board members. I guess tactics of force such as last years traffic jams will need to be used again. Kindergarten here.

  5. #1 ur 100% percent right – i will say one thing i heard from an askan that the heads of the lakewood public schools are salivating for a mass jewish enrollment and they will hire tons of staff to contracts that will have to be kept resulting in taxes skyrocketing… its been a long conversation….

  6. To Horowitz
    Of your 11000 in taxes about half or 5500 goes to the school budget. Of that 5550 about half goes to educate the public school students, about a third gies for special ed tutuitio for special needs kids to go to a special needs school and a good chunk of the rest goes for non courtesy busing. The state formula is broken and consuders onlt the 5000 public school kids when giving state school,aid.

  7. To Harry you stated that if we enroll in public schools are taxes will skyrocket would just like to let you know by NJ law taxes cannot exceed 2% so if everybody enrolled it would not effect your taxes and the state and federal goverment will be forced to py more money

  8. Bring them all to public school, bring your certified teaching staff,show we can all get along. Have educational classes during school hours and religious class as after school activity. Who knows, maybe would work, kids would adjust better than adults.

  9. This town is now suffering from a State Monitor.

    Where are the people who we voted into office, the ones who claimed they knew more then others?

    Moral of the story is every Lakewood Person who voted the former board in, is responsible for this mess!

Comments are closed.