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School board passes preliminary budget with no tax increase Transfer of surplus from 2020-21 toward debt service would offset 1.75% increase to general fund By Joe EmanSKi
Last month, the Hopewell Valley Regional Board of Education approved the preliminary budget for the 2021-22 school year by a margin of 7–2. The board is required to submit the preliminary budget to Mercer County for review. A public hearing on the county-approved budget is scheduled for April 26 (via Zoom), after which the board is expected to vote on the final budget proposal. This budget is significant because it will not increase in the local tax levy for the upcoming school year. That is despite the fact that the district’s general fund will grow by 1.75% from 2020-21, from $77,175,998 last year to $78,526,578 this year. The district was able to maintain the total local tax levy at its current level of $82,168,163 by applying some of the current year’s budget surplus toward its debt service. By paying down some of the district’s debt in advance, the board will be able to decrease next year’s debt burden by the same amount that the general fund will go up.
Although the district is proposing a flat tax rate for 202122, residents of Hopewell Township and Hopewell Borough will still see a slight rise in their school tax levy for next year. That has to do with the way the county calculates each municipality’s tax burden, however, and not in this case because of any decision made by the school district. The Hopewell Express spoke with Thomas Smith, Hopewell Valley superintendent of schools, a week after the passage of the preliminary budget. In our discussion we touched on a number of issues pertaining to the budget, the district, Covid-19, and other related topics. The Q&A has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Hopewell Express: Let’s take a minute to talk about the current school year and the unprecedented challenges that the district has faced during the pandemic. What are some things that the district got right? Thomas Smith: I think our screening protocols and really setting up our programs, I think we got that right. The schedule the way it was set up, the way it was rolled out, I think we’ve done well. Our ability to share information with the community, sharing each case and being transparent with our practices and protocols, that all seemed to work out. And our teachers have been phenomenal. They’ve been really creative and inventive See BUDGET, Page 8
Hopewell Valley Central High School students (clockwise from upper left) Caleb Briggs, Gretchen Cyriacus, Elliot Block and Sachi Siyal in the fall productions of “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Students performed their roles alone at home, and then a complete play was edited together and shared on Bulldog TV.
The show must go on Students, teachers of the performing arts find creative ways to be creative By Joe EmanSKi
For students of the theater, the play’s the thing. Performers have long seen the stage as that place where they go to work, to entertain, and to embody their passion for artistic creation. It’s true that the coronavirus pandemic has taken
stages away from performers over the past 12 months. But creators gotta create, and students and staff at Hopewell Valley Central High School have risen to the challenge of making art in a time when people could not gather indoors or in groups. Like performers around the world, they have embraced new ideas and new technologies that make it possible to go “on stage” again — even if their stages are virtual ones. In November, for instance, Central High School found a way to produce not one but two versions of Oscar Wilde’s
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play The Importance of Being Earnest. Two separate casts of students donned period costumes provided by the school and, working at home and, often, alone, recorded their performances. The recordings were then edited together by local theater professional Damian Bartolacci and broadcast online (where they can still be viewed on the Bulldog TV YouTube channel). The students are hard at work now rehearsing for their spring production of a musical See THEATER, Page 6
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