2009-10 School District Budget Summaries/Salaries & Benefits

• “User-friendly” Plain Language Budget Summaries
  In order to provide increased public accountability and transparency, P.L. 2007, c. 53 requires officials in each school district to place a “user-friendly” summary of their proposed budget on the district’s website (if one exists) following the public hearing on the budget and prior to the school election in April. After the election (and following municipal review if the budget is defeated), a final user-friendly summary of the final budget must be posted on both the district’s website and the Department of Education’s website. The posting must stay on-line for a year, until it is replaced by the following year’s budget summary.

  DOE worked with the New Jersey School Business Officials Association to create the format for the budget summary effective for 2008-09. It includes: all appropriation line items aggregated by item type; the school tax rate; the equalized school tax rate; revenues by major category; the amount of available surplus; a description of unusual revenues or appropriations, with a description of the circumstances of the revenues and appropriations; and a list of shared services agreements in which the district is participating.

09-10 User-friendly Budget Summaries --
View (District Specific) | Download (Statewide Data)

• Salaries and Benefits of Select School District Employees
  PL 2007, c.53 also required that beginning in 2008-09, detailed information on the salaries and benefits of each district superintendent, assistant superintendent, school business administrator and school district employees whose annual base salaries exceed $75,000 and who are not members of collective bargaining units must be submitted to DOE by the districts as part of the budget process. This information must be posted on both the individual district websites (or made available to the public by the district if no district website exists) and the DOE website.

  The information provided as part of the user-friendly budget summaries is for contracts in effect as of January 1, 2009. The amount columns are reported on an annualized basis and represent the maximum amount that the employee could be paid in the given year.

  It is important to note that some of the benefits listed on this website – such as stipends, the buyback of accrued sick time and separation payments – have either been capped or are no longer permitted to be included in new administrator contracts, which must be reviewed and approved by the Executive County Superintendent in each county.

  Finally, all users of this information should note that the salary data contained in the user-friendly budget summaries are self-reported by the districts. DOE has not approved this information, nor is the department responsible for its accuracy. Districts may have chosen to report salary and benefit data for all employees earning over $75,000, even if those employees were in collective bargaining units. Each district varies as to which classes of employees are part of collective bargaining units and some reported more employees than required by law. Users of this salary and benefit information should be cautious when comparing districts because of the various district options taken in presenting this data.

  Administrative Salaries
  (1.3 mb Microsoft Excel File)

13 Non-Operating School Districts Eliminated

Effective July 1, 2009, the State eliminated 13 non-operating school districts (districts operating without any schools). The elimination and merger of the 13 non-operating school districts with their larger, neighboring district where the children from the non-operating district already attended classes was the result of recent legislation. Since the elimination and merger of the 13 non-operating school districts and their respective receiving districts occurred subsequent to the preparation of the 2009-10 budget document and the April 2009 annual school election, the user friendly budget and salary and benefit data presented here continues to display the individual district budget information as presented to the voters prior to the elimination and merger. For further information and a listing of the impacted school districts click on this link: http://www.state.nj.us/education/news/2009/0701nonops.htm

The final accountability regulations, and a Q&A regarding the contract standards provisions, are posted on the Department's website at: http://www.state.nj.us/education/code/current/title6a/chap23a.htm.