Schools

BOE Submits Budget to County Superintendent With Seitz Contract Intact

District has not yet received a response after hand-delivering budget.

Parsippnay Board of Education officials received no word from the county superintendent of schools Wednesday after the district's proposed $129. 8 million budget was hand-delivered to her office.

Kathleen Serafino, the county superintendent of schools, last week threatened to withhold approval of the budget unless the school board rescinded the that exceeds the state salary cap of $175,000 for administrators in districts the size of Parsippany.

In her letter to Serafino, Board Administrator Marlene Wendolowski wrote that the budget was $1.37 million below the 2 percent state cap, but maintains all existing programs and services.

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"The impact on the average home in Parsippany will be a tax increase of $130; $81 is attributable to a 1% reduction in our ratable base and the remaining $49 is the actual budgetary increase,'' Wendolowski wrote. "Our property tax levy increase of .8% is the smallest increase I have seen in my almost 9 years with the district and I believe is quite remarkable for a district our size.''

Last week board member Frank Calabria raised the possiblity of restoring some programs and services that were cut from last year's budget, such as courtesy bussing, Spanish lessons a the grade school level and the amount of media center visits. 

Find out what's happening in Parsippanywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

But board member Andrew Choffo doubted that would happen. "It would increase the tax levy and we don't want to do that,'' he said.

According to Wendolowski's letter, pension fund costs are estimated to increase 37 precent over last year. 

Choffo anticipated that it would take a few days to receive an answer from Serafino. He said he didn't think Serafino had the authority to reject the entire budget unless the school had violated the law.

At last week's board meeting, acting board attorney Margaret Miller said the state could only withhold the difference between the $175,000 and Seitz's salary under the new contract.


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