Average tax bill should drop $80
OCEAN CITY — The bottom line of the 2022-23 Ocean City School District budget is an average $80 tax decrease for homeowners.
Business Administrator Tim Kelley presented the budget at Wednesday night’s school board meeting, showing the amount to be raised by taxes in the proposed spending plan drops just more than $1.5 million from this year to next.
Combined with increasing ratables in the resort, the tax rate per $100 of assessed valuation will decline by 1.6 cents to $0.199 from this year’s rate of $0.215. For the average home assessed at $500,000, the tax bill should decline from $1,075 this year to $995 next year, an $80 savings.
The budget is not final. It has to be approved by the New Jersey Department of Education/County Office review. The budget then will be the subject of a public hearing April 27.
As reported in The Sentinel on March 9, the biggest spending decrease in the budget comes from finally paying off the bonds on Ocean City High School. They were taken out in 2002 to fund construction of the new high school that opened in 2004. This is the last year of bond payments. Debt service for the current school year is $2,311,020, but next year will fall to $329,670, a decrease of $1,981,350 from year to year.
Total General Fund appropriations climbed about $700,000, or 1.6 percent, from this year to the proposed 2022-23 budget. This school year — 2021-22 — the budget is $42,909,224. The proposed budget for next school year is $43,604,662.
The regular program instruction category increased a little to $15,865,434, as did the special programs instruction, going to $3,093,622. Out-of-district tuition payments rose about $65,000 to $613,580, and employee benefits jumped more than $400,000 to $7,714,556.
Student support services are up about $145,000 to $4,349,340 and student activities/extension down about $245,000 to $1,103.317. Administration, curriculum/staff development is down more than $150,000 to $3,540,604. Operations, maintenance, grounds and security is up about $50,000 to $5,218,896 and student transportation is up slightly to $1,327,509.
State aid is increasing for next year.
School Choice aid is rising about $76,000 to $2,763,142 and Special Education aid is up about $130,000 to $1,112,848.
Total aid — including transportation and security, which are both flat — comes in at $4,331,249, a total of $206,843 more. Kelley pointed out that although the increase is 5.02 percent, state aid comprises 9.93 percent of the budget and the increase in aid amounts to only a half-percent of the school budget.
Revenues
In addition to state aid and the tax levy, the district expects to receive $11,354,334 in tuition from its sending districts, including Upper Township, Sea Isle City and Longport, an increase of just more than $300,000. Most other areas are flat with $1.9 million proposed on tuition reserve, $150,000 in emergency reserve and $400,000 in maintenance reserve. Proposed fund balance use is $881,413, a sizable drop from $975,504 this year. The capital reserve being used is planned at $225,000, a jump from $65,000 this year.
Kelley cautioned that although the district is getting a boost in tuition for next year, that number is expected to decline after that because of a drop in the number of students from Upper Township, the primary sending district to the high school. (Audits are performed after the school year to formally determine how many students actually attended Ocean City schools from the sending districts so the fluctuation in aid, either up or down, is not felt until after the school year is completed.)
Tax impact
Discussing the tax impact, Kelley explained the 2021-22 tax impact includes $23,653,303 in the general fund and another $2,311,020 in debt service for a total to be raised by taxes of $25,964,323.
For 2022-23, the proposed general fund is $24,126,369, an increase of $473,066, but the debt service fund is only $329,670, a drop of $1,981,350. That puts the total to be raised by taxes in 2022-23 at $24,456,039.
The total assessed valuation in Ocean City rose nearly $175 million to almost $12.3 billion, a factor that also is helping the Ocean City municipal budget to hold the line on taxes.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
