PLUMSTED – Students walked through the front doors of their schools this month, but behind the scenes, the district still has financial challenges ahead to face.
Plumsted was one of several local districts hit hard by the S-2 funding formula that drastically cut state aid. Jackson, Lacey, Brick and Toms River also faced some of the worst cuts.
“We were slammed at close to $7 million in losses of state funding over a six-year period and what the district was able to do – like other districts like Jackson and Toms River – was at first cutting staff to get to that number so we could move forward,” Superintendent David Ytreboe explained.
He continued saying, “as we were cutting staff, we were really restricting ourselves with being functional and by that, I mean we were sharing staff between the high school, the middle school and the elementary school.”
The school even utilized an online math teacher for classes. “We had a very difficult time finding a certified math instructor. There are a couple of storms emerging in New Jersey in education – one of them is obviously funding and another is a teacher shortage. That vortex is definitely causing some challenges for us,” the superintendent added.
He noted that the virtual math teacher was not a funding issue it was “a teacher scarcity issue. It was hard to find (teachers) with those certificates. We found one and put into place in February and that teacher will be back with us this year.”
Ytreboe told The Jackson Times that the school district can not cut any more staff. “We are at that point where if we reduce staff we can’t function. This year we did it out of attrition. We had some retirements. We reduced an administrator, we reduced a secretary, an elementary school teacher, a high school teacher, five or six staff members including two cafeteria aides. We tried to reduce more but that is as far as we could go because we need in the middle school and high school four subject teachers just to run a schedule.”
“In the elementary school we need three grade level teachers just so we can have under 30 students in each class. If we reduce that then we are in the 40s,” he said. “We had to share with the state that cutting is no longer an option.”
Ytreboe said he believes “the Department of Education is trying to work through this challenge but there really are no solutions for us because we’ve done everything we can. I’ve talked to Nicole (Pormilli, superintendent of the Jackson School District) and we’ve commiserated with these challenges but we truly believe that we have done everything that we can do on our level.”
In recent discussions during a Township Committee meeting, members of that body and residents who have spoken at those sessions have expressed support toward the idea of allowing the school district to rezone a property across the street from the Main Street elementary school that the district owns allowing for a higher price to sell it and to supplement its revenue losses.
“I believe that property was bought by the school district in 1959. We are looking to get out of our fiscal crisis and we are looking at what other districts have done and just reading the news I knew that two years ago Toms River was able to balance their budget off a land sale that was based off the township buying that land keeping it as open space,” Ytreboe said.
That is what he hopes will be the outcome for Plumsted’s school district with Ocean County possibly being the buyer and preserving the property that would allow for its continued use by the students of the school system.
“Jackson also had a land sale. We were collectively talking about what assets we have here and what we have here is land. I love all our fields but we are desperate and as superintendent it is part of my job to build a bridge with our township and with all the stakeholders. We have a liaison committee and one of the topics was how can we get ourselves out of this budget crisis. It was brought up that there was interest in land,” he added.
The township did show some interest though nothing was passed by the Township Committee. The school district appraised the land.
Ytreboe said, “our shortfall at the time was close to $2 million and we also have a shortfall next year of an additional $2 million. We were able to lower it to $1.3 million this year – so $3.3 million (is the total). So the closer I can get to that number the better off the school district is.”
Early conversations had the township being interested in buying the land from the school district, according to Ytreboe. He said the appraisal came in and it was “lower than the number we needed. It is adjacent to the downtown, town center then it was suggested we get it rezoned to C-4 and the appraisal number would go up to a better number.”
In May, Yretobe wrote to the Township Committee requesting they support the idea of rezoning the property and was told in June that this could be considered spot zoning according to what the township attorney said. “Unfortunately, spot zoning is not something that is legal,” the superintendent remarked.
“That is when I think they were trying to bring adjacent lots into the redevelopment plan so it wouldn’t be spot zoning,” Ytreboe added. “I have met with some Committeemen who have suggested the Ocean County Land Trust so we are looking at getting that application out and so we will do that in September, written up and presented to the Board (of Education) to review and then send out to the County.”
