Moorestown board reviews draft 2025–26 budget, faces $1.2 million gap as health care and state aid shifts bite

The Moorestown Township Board of Education on March 10 held a special public workshop to review the district’s draft 2025–26 budget, which the administration said currently shows about a $1.2 million deficit driven chiefly by a 13.4% increase in health‑benefit costs and limits on state aid increases.

School officials told the board the budget is “an extremely, extremely fluid process,” and outlined steps already taken and options under consideration to close the gap, including targeted staffing changes, capital reserve withdrawals, adjustments to lease‑purchase requests and careful assumptions about extraordinary aid and one‑time dividends from insurance funds.

Why it matters: the board must adopt a budget for submission to the county in mid‑March and formally adopt it in late April; the draft determines the tax levy, how many staff and programs the district can sustain, and how much will be drawn from reserves or one‑time revenues.

At the start of the presentation, James Heiser summarized the budget development timeline and the district’s three goals: retain staff and programs, maximize operational efficiency, and strengthen student learning. Heiser said the district built its per‑pupil and enrollment projections from its October ASSA counts and a seven‑year trend line. “The budget is an extremely, extremely fluid process,” he told the board, noting that estimates change as final numbers arrive from insurers, the state and other sources.

Heiser and other administrators flagged several major drivers of the gap. Health benefits, initially budgeted at about a 10% rise, were confirmed at a 13.4% increase, which Heiser said materially widened the budget shortfall. Electricity and utility costs also rose in projection — the administration built roughly a $110,000 (about 14%) increase into the energy lines — and transportation contract renewals were higher than the district’s 2% revenue cap even though renewals were lower than last year’s spikes.

State aid and extraordinary aid were a central theme of the discussion. The district’s uncapped state‑aid calculation produced an expected aid figure of roughly $7.9 million, but the district’s actual notice showed roughly $6.6 million, creating what presenters called a $1.3 million “shortfall” relative to the formula. Officials said the state applied a maximum loss cap of 3% and a maximum gain cap of 6% when issuing notices this year, which broke with the prior statutory phase‑in (referred to in the presentation as “S2”) and left Moorestown behind the full‑formula amount it expected. The administration said it budgeted extraordinary aid conservatively at 75% of the district’s recent three‑year receipts because that reimbursement program is paid on a spend‑first, reimbursement basis and the statewide reimbursement percentage has fluctuated historically.

The presentation also detailed one‑time/dividend revenues the district plans to draw from its SHIF and JIF insurance funds to help offset the health‑benefit pressure. Heiser said the district planned withdrawals totaling roughly $2.0 million across the current and upcoming budgets but cautioned those dividend sources are not sustainable year to year: “It’s a big source of revenue in this budget, but it's not a sustainable source of revenue,” he said.

Administrators outlined changes and priorities across categories: departmental budgets have been asked to cut further, some proposed new positions were removed or deferred, capital outlay projects were prioritized or shifted and some lease‑purchase requests were reduced. The presentation listed specific capital items that will remain in the plan — including high‑school chiller repairs and Baker HVAC work — and explained that unspent capital reserves simply return to capital reserve for later use.

The board heard program updates that feed into the budget numbers: the district plans to adopt the HMH Into Math K–5 curriculum in a six‑year package with summer professional development and publisher training; technology plans include a year‑two replacement cycle for student devices, staff laptop replacements, network switch upgrades and cybersecurity work eligible for E‑Rate; transportation renewals carry an average contract increase of 3.57%; and facility maintenance and custodial contracts are being rebid as required.

Administrators also discussed the Special Education Medicaid Initiative (SEMI) projection: typically about $50,000 in revenue, the state projection in the memo the district received that week was only $4,927, prompting staff to raise questions with the county office about reimbursement rates and statutory participation thresholds. Heiser and child‑study staff said the SEMI program is administratively heavy and legally required for districts with more than 40 eligible students; the district is discussing whether statutory thresholds or program rules should be revisited at the state level.

Public comment included a resident request to restore additional school resource officers (SLEOs). Cheryl McCoppill, a resident, thanked staff for their work and urged the board to consider expanding SLEO coverage to one officer per campus, saying officers are “an amazing addition” and noting that, in her estimate, adding three officers would equal “two‑tenths of a percent of the total budget.”

Next steps: the administration will return March 18 to introduce the budget for formal submission to Burlington County, where it will undergo the county’s review. The presenters said they expect additional reductions to department and building budgets, further evaluation of lease purchases and fees, and continued monitoring of extraordinary aid and one‑time dividends. The board moved into an executive session on personnel at the end of the public discussion; no formal vote on the budget occurred at the workshop.

Votes and formal actions taken at the meeting were limited to procedural motions. The board made motions to close public comment, enter executive session, return to public session and adjourn; each motion was approved by voice vote of those present.