DENNIS TOWNSHIP – The state Department of Education has approved the school district’s request for a $1.8 million increase in the tax levy to support its budget.
The approval was given despite the fact that township voters in 2023 and 2024 decisively rejected requests by the district for additional funding through taxes. The $1.8 million levy does not require voter approval.
The impact on township taxpayers will be $186.60 per $100,000 of assessed value.
The state approval was granted after the district declared it could not meet its obligation under the New Jersey Constitution to provide a thorough and efficient education for township schoolchildren under current funding levels.
Retiring Schools Superintendent Susan Speirs said in a statement that the increased tax levy does “not resolve the broader financial challenges facing Dennis Township.”
The statement goes on to say that the Board of Education continues to work closely with the district administration to explore long-term cost-sharing strategies, including potential reductions in administrative staffing, facility consolidation and leasing opportunities.
The Board of Education had a meeting scheduled for May 6, past the Herald’s print deadline, at which there was to be a budget hearing and vote to adopt a 2025-2026 budget. That budget would reflect the tax levy increase, and it will benefit from a one-time 5% aid contribution from the state.
The school district got the tax levy approval through the Department of Education’s Tax Levy Incentive Aid Program. The program allows for a one-time exception to the state’s yearly 2% tax levy cap; the cap places a limit on the annual increases in taxpayer funding to support schools.
Under the program, school districts that suffered from a loss of state aid over the past few years can replace some of that lost funding with taxpayer dollars up to the amount of the difference between the amount of state aid allocated to the district in the 2020-2021 fiscal year and the amount allocated to the district in the 2024-2025 school year.
State aid to Dennis schools declined by $4.3 million over seven years.
The additional levy is subject to a cap within the program that does not permit it to be more than 9.9% of the levy for the current budget year. The increase in the levy is permanent and sets a new base levy for future years that will be subject to normal budgetary state caps.
The Dennis schools tried twice recently to gain voter approval of a tax levy hike beyond the 2% cap, once through a special referendum in 2024 and once through a question on the 2023 general election ballot.
In September 2024, voter turnout was high for the special election, with the referendum bringing out 44% of the township’s registered voters. The request in that referendum was for an increase in the levy of $2.2 million. In that referendum 81% of the voters cast ballots against the Board of Education proposal.
Voters also rejected the 2023 general election ballot question that requested $1.3 million in additional taxpayer support; 57% of township voters said no.
Speirs announced her retirement in January, effective July 1. She was appointed in 2019 just as a multiyear program of state cuts to what was known as adjustment aid began.
As Dennis grappled with increasing reductions in state aid, a 2022 feasibility study by Stockton University’s Southern Regional Institute and Educational Technology Training Center looked at the potential of consolidating the Woodbine and Dennis school districts with Middle Township’s. Five scenarios were considered in the 106-page report.
David Salvo, superintendent of the Middle Township School District, characterized the study as showing that all three districts face disadvantages in consolidation or regionalization. In a letter reacting to the Stockton study, Salvo did not mention any of the advantages highlighted in the study. Salvo is also retiring this year.
