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Freehold Regional board adopts amended 2024–25 budget, raises levy to restore staff and programs
Summary
The Freehold Regional High School District board approved an amended 2024–25 budget that uses a narrow window of recent state legislation to increase the property-tax levy and recoup prior years’ lost state aid; the board said the proposal will reinstate dozens of staff and partially reduce the district’s adequacy deficit. The motion passed by roll call with eight votes in favor and one opposing vote.
The Freehold Regional High School District Board of Education voted to approve an amended 2024–25 budget that includes a limited property-tax levy increase intended to undo years of state-aid losses under the state's S-2 funding changes.
“Under S-2 the district has lost significant state aid,” Superintendent Dr. Hazel said during the public hearing, and the amended budget includes $30,600,000 in state aid for 2024–25. The administration told the board the levy increase under the recently enacted legislation would allow the district to add roughly $10.18 million in taxes to the levy base, which it says would reduce the district's adequacy deficit by about half.
Business administrator Mr. Boyce reviewed the mechanics behind the funding change and the district's options, saying the measure's look-back provision lets districts capture property-tax revenue that could not be levied previously because of a 2% cap on annual levy increases. “This reduces our adequacy deficits by just over half,” Boyce said, summarizing the budget's structural effects.
Board members and administrators described how the additional levy revenue would be used. Dr. Hazel listed planned restorations including the planned hiring of approximately a dozen teachers, one nurse and six secretarial positions, reinstatement of the RAISE (twilight) program and targeted investments in facility maintenance and security systems, including HVAC work paired with state grants.
Several board members spoke in favor of the budget during debate, noting the district's comparatively low cost per pupil and the priority of preserving classroom instruction. A public commenter questioned distributional impacts across the district's eight sending municipalities; administrators explained the district's single levy is allocated among those municipalities by a state formula that factors property values and student counts.
The board approved the amended budget on a roll-call vote with eight board members voting yes and one voting no (Mister Messinger). The administration said the increase is intended as a sustained adjustment to the levy base rather than a one-time spike, and that the board will follow state procedures for tax-rate disclosure and municipal allocation.
Next steps: the budget carries and district staff will move to implement the rehiring and program restorations described by administrators as they prepare for the start of school.
