Dan Tumolo is stepping away as the Board of Education's president.
By Donald Wittkowski
For the eighth straight year, Sea Isle City’s Board of Education has adopted a budget that keeps school taxes stable.
The 2019-2020 school spending plan totals $2.4 million, up slightly from last year’s budget, figures show.
There will be no increase in the amount of funding to be raised by taxation. For the owner of an average Sea Isle home assessed at around $646,000, the annual school tax will be $260.
Dan Tumolo, president of the Board of Education, said school finances remain strong. The budget supports a number of education and community initiatives, including mental health counseling, drug prevention, a creativity innovation project and an SAT testing reimbursement program for Sea Isle students.
The Board of Education also has partnerships with the city and the Sea Isle Chamber of Commerce and Revitalization for initiatives that benefit local schoolchildren.
The school budget also includes a fund balance that maintains “a healthy level” for emergency spending if needed, documents show.
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 for their education. Sea Isle pays Ocean City tuition for educating its students.
Tuition costs remain the biggest expense in the 2019-2020 school budget, coming in at nearly $1.7 million.
Transportation costs are the second-largest expense at $470,000. Administration, operations and maintenance costs totaling about $140,000 make up the rest of the budget expenses.
Dan Tumolo, the Board of Education president, says school finances remain strong.
High-end vacation homes overlooking the beaches and bay are a hallmark of the Sea Isle housing market.
Sea Isle’s student population generally has been declining year after year since the school was closed, but the most recent figures show a slight increase. For the 2019-2020 school year, the city has a total of 114 students, compared to 109 last year. Tumolo called the modest increase a “fluke” that does not suggest any long-term trends.
He noted, for instance that the current figure of 114 students is only one-fourth of the 444 school-age children who lived in Sea Isle in 2000.
For the 2019-2020 school year, 83 of Sea Isle’s students will be sent to Ocean City’s public schools. A smaller number of Sea Isle students will attend the Bishop McHugh, Wildwood Catholic, Holy Spirit and St. Augustine Prep schools in Atlantic and Cape May counties.
The city’s aging population is another factor in the downward trend of schoolchildren, Tumolo said. U.S. Census figures show that the median age of Sea Isle’s residents was 63 years old in 2016, compared to 51 in 2010.
