The township board of education will hold a public hearing on the 2026-’27 budget on May 6.
School business administrator Helen Haley outlined the budget process at a March meeting. It starts out with the worst-case revenue scenario, a gap of $6.4 million. That includes no reductions to current appropriations; all requested items included; contractual salary increases; and anticipated increases in health care, transportation, utilities and insurance.
“This is pretty scary at first,” Haley acknowledged.
But as the board started analyzing revenues and appropriations for possible reductions, the budget gap decreased. On the revenue side, the district looked at increasing budgeted interest income, classroom rental income from the Voorhees Early Childhood Development Center (where the Gibbsboro School District leases five classrooms) and revenue from bus leasing.
On the appropriations side, the district reviewed all line items and reduced where appropriate, adjusted salary lines to reflect announced retirements and adjusted health care and other insurance to reflect actual provider rate increases. That reduced the budget gap to $3.8 million.
The pre-K to 8 school district made cuts to appropriations with no impact on instruction or district staffing. They included allocating permitted expenses to Preschool Expansion Aid for utilities and transportation; allocated utilities to Enterprise Funds or Community Education and Recreation and Food Service; restructured the timing of lease purchase financing payments to level out impact over the remaining years; reduced contracted vendor usage for substitute staffing and registered behavior technicians (RBTs); and eliminated courtesy busing for non-hazardous roads.
The gap decreased further to $1.79 million. The district saw an increase of $5,795 in state aid, which reduced it again to $1,786,725.
Haley explained that the district proposed to use banked cap for its health-care cost adjustment. The district has $1.97 million available in banked cap that it can use within the next three years. The health-care cost increase for 2026-’27 is $1.92 million.
The district proposed to use $1.79 million in banked cap. That action reduced the gap to zero. The tax levy in the 2026-’27 budget is $54.56 million. With the addition of banked cap, that amount increases to $56.35 million.
The tax rate increases by $.0416 cents per $100 of assessed valuation from, $0.931 in 2025-’26 to $0.973 in 2026-’27. For an average home assessed at $455,056 the annual impact at 2% is $117.43 for the same year. The annual impact on the average home for is $189.42, an increase of $71.99.
School taxes are one item on a property owner’s total tax bill, which also includes municipal taxes, and Camden County taxes.
The budget hearing meeting will begin at 7 p.m.
