Last spring concerned parents and school staff filled the meeting rooms as the Board of Education made its final reviews of the budget before approving it.

The board only had days to complete a budget to submit for the county schools superintendent to review it after learning it had lost all of its approximate $3 million in state aid. Millburn wasn't the only district in the state that suffered significant cuts in state funding last spring, and school officials across the state were making tough decisions on how to trim their budgets.

But unlike in many other districts, the people who filled those budget meetings in the spring in Millburn learned the Board of Education was not cutting teachers nor was it making dramatic changes like instituting user fees or charging for courtesy busing.

Instead, the board approved an administrative reorganization of the supervisor positions while rejecting a proposal to cut teachers. While elementary school supervisors have been retained, a new role of department chairmen were added at the high school. The choice to not cut teachers came just one year after the school board elected to hire an additional 14 teachers, including at the middle school to address an eighth grade team size problem.

And in those two budget cycles, the school board kept the tax increase to 2 percent in 2009 and 1.3 percent in 2010. Both budgets also passed with about 60 percent of the vote, including last spring when voters did not approve more than half of the proposed school  budgets in New Jersey.

Jeff Waters, Finance Committee chairman, said the will of the board was to protect the things that happen in the classrooms, including the teachers. It was a sentiment expressed by several board members during last spring's budget debate on why they cut the supervisors.

"We were able to make the numbers work," he said of not cutting the teachers or even asking the union for a wage freeze. He also said former Schools Supt. Richard Brodow, who retired at the end of June, felt strongly about not laying off teachers.

New Schools Supt. James Crisfield said the Millburn School District was in the same position as many others last spring, but Millburn officials were able to keep classroom teachers and programs in tact. He applauded school officials' work to make sure that happened.

Lois Infanger, Millburn Education Association president, said she was very pleased to see the classroom positions protected last spring. Like she did last spring, she again thanked the Board of Education for preserving the teaching positions.

"It reinforced the support from the Board of Education," she said. "We always have known they support what happens in the classroom."

But it doesn't mean the school board hasn't made cuts in its budget. Waters, who is in his third budget cycle as Finance Committee chairman, said non-staff areas of the budget have been cut aggressively over the last two years. Plus staff has been cut in other ways, he said. The district's paraprofessionals were eliminated over the last two years because of state accountability regulations. School officials also examine vacancies carefully when they happen, Waters said.

The work started in the prior year, he said, as the economy weakened and school officials saw a need to keep costs and the tax rate down. The board set on a different course of budgeting while protecting the integrity of the school system, he said. Much of the early cuts and changes were done with "low hanging fruit," he said. And school officials also kept down the tax rate by drawing down its surplus budget funds.

The work in two years "orchestrated a soft landing during some difficult times," Waters said. "It was no accident."

But while school officials have been able to protect teacher jobs so far, they cannot promise to be able to do it in the future.

"I can't say we can do it again," Crisfield said. "I would like to, but it would be disingenuous to say we can save teaching spots."

A new state-imposed cap on tax increases at 2 percent means no line item can exceed that number, Crisfield. If it does, another line item will need to be lower. And school officials need to look at the big things to make cuts, and that means salaries and benefits.

"People get concerned about things like athletics and supplies, but they're just not big enough to make a difference (on the budget)," he said.

Infanger said no promises have been made to the teachers union. Last spring the board rejected a proposal to cut teachers, and she hopes that happens again. But the possibility of teacher cuts sits in the back of their minds, she said.

"There's no way to prepare for it," she said of possible cuts. It would affect class size at the elementary schools and at the middle and high schools in different ways, including the size of middle school teams, she said. But the teachers focus on what they need to do today in their classes, she said.

Among the issues facing the district is a budget gap. The gap is between the amount of money raised by the tax rate and the money spent on the school budget, which was partly caused by the use of the surplus funds. School officials mentioned the gap could be as much as $5 million last spring, but Waters said it won't be that large. But both Waters and Crisfield said it's too early to say how large the gap actually will be.

And school board members will need to examine changes such as instituting user fees and charging for courtesy busing and if they should be implemented. School board committees have already started examining the issues, including class size. The Program Committee is analyzing class size issues now and expects to report on them to the Finance Committee and at a Board of Education meeting in November. It will take up user fee issues next. The Property Committee is planning to take up transportation issues, including courtesy busing, in the coming weeks.

Waters said the board was faced with "pretty important" budget decisions to be made over the course of about three days last spring. The will of the board was to put off those decisions for a year so more study could be done, especially since the numbers worked, he said.

"It would buy us the time to study the issues and give them thought," he said.

Plus the district has a new superintendent in Crisfield. Waters said even Brodow agreed last spring it would be more appropriate for the new superintendent to make decisions that would have a multi-year effect.

Crisfield, who was a school business administrator before his first job as a school superintendent, said he is just starting to get his hands around the budget and its issues. He's and incoming Business Administrator Steve DiGeronimo are starting the transition process with Interim Business Administrator Robert Zeglarski.

Crisfield said all options from busing to class size to "pay to participate" need to be examined and need to be on the table. Some of those programs already are in place in other districts.

"No one likes them, but we're left with no choice," he said. "No one wants to raise taxes. We need to make some hard choices."

Plus school officials will be entering negotiations with the Millburn Education Association on a new contract in the spring. Waters said there is an opportunity to reset some of the things in the contract moving forward. The cost increases of the contract need to be at a sustainable rate, he said.

Infanger said she has worked on at least five teacher contracts and there always has been compromise between the Board of Education and the Millburn Education Association. "There's always been a good relationship (between management and the union)," she said.

The union and board can go to the negotiating table as early as Jan. 1. Infanger said right now the union leadership is surveying the membership to form a proposal. The proposal would then be analyzed by the New Jersey Education Association before it's brought to the board in negotiations.

There are new mandates from state officials on things like contributions to the health care program, Waters said, which will make things easier for school officials. But Crisfield said school officials need to be careful. Some of the proposed mandates, including those in the governor's so-called toolkit like a cap on union contract increases, have yet to be approved and put into place.

"That's the beauty of (Gov. Chris Christie's) style," he said. "He will pronounce things, but they don't exist... If he can give us some cover, it would be wonderful, but he can't decree things."

Christie also has battled with the state teachers union since taking office. Infanger said the governor tries to separate the NJEA from the teachers, but they are still one in the same. "It's like saying a chair isn't a piece of furniture," she said.

Instead, he doesn't practice the art of conversation and compromise and is a "top down dictator," she said. The teachers association has been cut out of the process when they try to compromise, she said. Infanger cited the Race to the Top proposal, in which the NJEA came to a compromise with then Education Commissioner Bret Schundler that Christie rejected. New Jersey ended up losing out on $400 million.

Infanger said she thinks Millburn-Short Hills residents are smart enough to know education issues aren't simple. Many people realize if they dig below what the governor says, they will see the issues are much deeper. "It's not cut and dry," she said.

This story is part of a nationwide Patch series probing the economy's effect on local schools. For more on the series on the impact on Millburn-Short Hills schools, click here.