By Donald Wittkowski
The head of Sea Isle City’s Board of Education is warning about cutbacks in state aid, but vows there will be no increase in the local school tax to make up for the loss of funding.
Dan Tumolo, board president, said Sea Isle was notified three weeks ago of a $17,000 cut in state aid for special education services and transportation.
“We want to look for ways to make up the funding. I don’t feel it’s necessary to raise taxes this year or next year based on the funding formula,” he said in an interview Monday.
Altogether, Sea Isle received $256,000 in state education aid as part of its $2.4 million school budget for 2018-2019. The budget kept the local school tax stable for the seventh straight year, Tumolo said.
Of the $256,000 in state aid, about $65,000 went for tuition and transportation costs for Sea Isle students who attend the Cape May County Special Services School in Cape May Court House, Tumolo said. The $17,000 loss in state funding came out of the $65,000 cost for special education services.
“It was $17,000 this year. I may lose $17,000 again next year, but I may lose $34,000,” Tumolo said, warning about the uncertainties in state funding for Sea Isle in years to come.
Tumolo first spoke of the funding cut during the City Council meeting on Aug. 14. He told the Council members that he wanted to “alert” them about the decrease in state aid, but did not ask them for their help.
In the interview, Tumolo said the school board has a strong relationship with Council and that Council “trusts us to make the right decisions.”
He noted that he is working on some ideas for compensating for the $17,000 funding loss and may share them when the Board of Education holds its next meeting on Sept. 4.
“So the question is, how do we make it up?” he said.
Sea Isle's former public school was closed in 2012 due to declining student enrollment. Students are now sent to other school districts, including Ocean City.
Sea Isle is not the only school district to lose state aid for special education services as part of broader cuts in funding by New Jersey, Tumolo said.
“The plan, as I understand it, is to cut over six years to get state education funding down. Over six years, I could lose the whole $65,000,” he said, referring to Sea Isle’s annual spending for special education.
Sea Isle, which closed its own public school in 2012 due to declining enrollment, sends most of its students to the Ocean City school district. Sea Isle pays about $15,000 in tuition for each student who goes to Ocean City, Tumolo said.
Some students from Sea Isle also attend or have attended the private Bishop McHugh, Wildwood Catholic, Holy Spirit and St. Augustine Prep schools in Atlantic and Cape May counties. Still others attend to the Cape May County Special Services School.
As Sea Isle’s student population has declined, so has its school budget. Tumolo said the budget was once about $4 million, compared to $2.4 million now. The owner of a typical Sea Isle home assessed at about $642,000, will pay $261 in annual school taxes.
Budget spending fell when Sea Isle began sending its students in grades fifth through eighth to Ocean City in 2010, followed by third and fourth grades in 2011 and first and second grades in 2012.
Sea Isle’s student population is down again in 2018, a trend Tumolo blamed on the beach town’s upscale real estate market. He said younger families with children simply can’t afford to buy homes in Sea Isle and are seeking less-expensive housing in the mainland communities.
For 2018, there are 117 school-age children living in Sea Isle, compared to 130 in 2017, Tumolo said.
The city’s aging population is another factor in the downward trend of school children. U.S. Census figures for 2018 show that the average age of a Sea Isle resident is 63 years old, compared to 52 years old in 2010, Tumolo said.
