School Budget Passes, Wolak and Krauss Elected to Board of Education

The citizens of New Providence have spoken and the unofficial results are in: the proposed 2011/2012 school budget passed with 1,049 "yes" votes, versus 504 "no" votes.

was re-elected to another term on the Board of Education with 992 votes, along with , who received 716 votes. was defeated, receiving 682 votes.

that voter turnout was quite good, the unofficial numbers don't lie: Just 1,559 voters, or 21.15 percent of the 7,370 registered voters, came out to the polls today.

Wolak, who works as an attorney, was re-elected after serving nine years on the Board of Education.

“Certainly, nine years of service gives me a good base of experience in dealing with the operation of the school district,” Wolak, a town resident for about 17 years, told Patch earlier this week. “More experience is better.”

Krauss, a town resident for almost 30 years, who retired last year after 18 years of service on the Board of Education, decided to run for re-election because he missed working with the Board members.

“I think that over those 18 years, there were significant improvements in the curriculum and the facilities,” Krauss told Patch earlier this week, adding that two bond issues were passed during his term to upgrade facilities throughout the district. “I realized that I really miss working with really terrific people.”

Both Wolak and Krauss were in favor of the proposed 2011/2012 school budget, which includes a zero percent tax increase, no cuts to co-curricular and academic programs for students, and a total operating budget of $32,209,079. The change in operating expenditures from the 2010/2011 school budget is 0.91 percent.

The zero percent tax increase was made possible because the New Providence School District received a , which actually resulted in a tax levy decrease by 0.02 percent, a total of $6,627.

“We’re going to use that to offset the tax levy included as revenue, providing a direct benefit to the taxpayers of New Providence in terms of tax relief, which we thought was the most appropriate use of the money given the current situation,” said Wolak, the Finance Committee Chairman, at the Feb. 28 board meeting. “We’ll continue to operate our district at the high level we’ve all come to expect.”

Prior to Gov. Chris Christie's budget address, assuming the district was not receiving any state aid, the , amounting to $280,000, imposing a one percent tax levy increase for residents.

That increase would have resulted in a $31 increase per half year for the 2011/2012 school year, based on the average assessed home, Wolak said at the Feb. 28 board meeting.

“It’s the first time in a long time that we can, as a board, sit here and say that we’ll continue to provide the educational services with no tax increase as a result of this budget,” Wolak said at the Feb. 28 board meeting.

Although the district did receive some state aid this year, the $322,610 received is approximately 78 percent less than what the district received from the state for the 2009/2010 school budget. However, it is an increase from last year when the state did not allocate any aid to New Providence.

The district also proposed allocating $10,000 of the state aid allocation toward replacing outdated technology. The district later received a at the March 24 meeting, which will be used to replace and enhance technology in each of the district's schools.

Click to view all of our coverage leading up to the 2011 school election.

Salt Brook,

1-3

Salt Brook,

4-5

Municipal Center,

2 & 6

Municipal Center,

7

High School,

8-9

AWR,

10-11