AVON-BY-THE-SEA — The Avon-By-The-Sea Board of Education (BOE) unanimously adopted its $5.5 million budget for the 2025 to 2026 school year at its meeting Monday night.
The general fund for the upcoming school year’s budget is set at $5,587,163, including a levy of $4,331,590 to be raised by taxation.
The budget includes other revenue in the amount of $1,255,573 – for state aid, tuition, interest, excess surplus, miscellaneous, withdrawal tuition and capital reserves – as well as $30,793 for special revenue.
Officials expect federal aid to decrease by 25%.
The tax levy increased by 5.23%, or $215,091. The averaged assessed home in the borough of $1,050,000 will see a $230 increase in school taxes from last year.
According to School Business Administrator and Board Secretary Amy Lerner, who presented the budget to the public, “We’re changing our budget to withdraw $50,000 from capital reserve to redo our security infrastructure” as well as to potentially resurface the playground. She added that the security infrastructure is “outdated and the wiring is old, so it’s a challenge for the cameras to work and the police to get to them so we need to redo the infrastructure.”
“We do have the funds and it’s not an impact to the taxpayer,” she continued. “We have the funds in capital reserve to be able to pull that money out.”
She later clarified that approving the budget with this capital reserve funding pulled out does not approve the projects but just approves those funds to be withdrawn, if the board were to decide to do those projects. “The committee will still meet and decide whether or not to do those projects, but we need to put the money in the budget in case you do decide to do them.”
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