Politics & Government

UPDATED: Public School Budget Hearing Slated for Wednesday

Says borough council's and BOE's finance committees to first meet and discuss costs.

Updated Friday 11:16 a.m.

The Hopatcong council and Board of Education will hold a joint special meeting to decided whether to reduce the district's proposed school budget, which failed by 34 votes, on Wednesday at borough hall at 6 p.m.

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Hopatcong's council met in executive session Monday night to discuss the defeated school budget proposal, which would have raised school taxes on the average borough home $109.

Mayor Sylvia Petillo said during the brief meeting the council informed its finance committee of its concerns with the budget.

Find out what's happening in Hopatcong-Spartawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Petillo said the next step would be to for the council's finance committee to to approach the Board of Education's finance committee to address "questions that we want answered from their budget."

"We need to have a conversation with them," she said. "When we have the information we need, we can know how much they can handle. Things are tight right now."

Petillo said there would then be a public meeting at borough hall "probably sometime next week" on the budget, in which the council would vote on a final amount to reduce from the budget. The district must accept the dollar number the council provides. But it's not required to make cuts the council recommends.

Last year, the council reduced the district's budget proposal $730,000. That, coupled with a $1.7 million loss in state aid, resulted in 24.5 teacher cuts and the elimination of several programs.


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