School Board Rejects Budget

After several hours of discussion, the Board of Education Monday morning rejected the options presented to it for the 2010-11 budget.

Nancy Dries, school spokeswoman, who was at the meeting, said the board rejected the options and voted no on sending any of them to the county superintendent. Board members and school officials will work through the day to come to a conclusion on the budget before Monday night's scheduled meeting. The hope is for the board to vote then.

The board is scheduled to meet at 7:45 p.m. at the Education Center. On the agenda is a budget presentation. Update: The school board meeting has been moved to the Millburn High School auditorium.

The board and school officials have been scrambling since last Wednesday when they learned they would lose all of their $3 million in state aid. The board felt there were other approaches to the budget, Dries said.

Seven of the nine members of the board were present—Mark Zucker and Eric Seigel were absent—and all voted to reject moving the budget forward to the county superintendent. Monday is the deadline to submit the budget to the county superintendent, which is why the board held a special early morning meeting. Dries said other districts are in the same situation with the potential of being late with a budget submission.

The vote to send the budget to the county superintendent, however, is not the final board vote on the budget. It is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the budget on March 31 before voting to send it to voters. The budget election is scheduled for April 20.