Heights Schools Get Small Bump in State Aid

UPDATED 9:30 p.m.- Hasbrouck Heights schools will get a small increase of $14,449 in state aid for a total of $1,101,186 for 2013-2014 as per figures released by the state Thursday.

Now that state figures are in, the board is in the process of finalizing the tentative budget which will be adopted Wednesday, March 6 at a special meeting set for 7:30 p.m.

Governor Christie pledged Tuesday an additional $97 million would go into state aid for 378 districts for the upcoming school year and that there would be no cuts in aid to any district.

Bergen County received $2,853,507 which was divided amongst 20 of the 77 districts including Hasbrouck Heights. Many Bergen districts will not see any increase for the coming year.

The Hasbrouck Heights district was greatful there were no cuts to state aid, according to Dina Messery, business administrator.  The increase is substantially smaller than the additional monies the state granted the district the last two years.

After having its state aid severely slashed in 2010, Hasbrouck Heights has since seen much of that returned over the past two years. Last year Heights received for a total of $1,083,148. In 2011 the Heights district was given back a total of $486,146 in state aid.

The tentative budget, which will be adopted Wednesday, will then be sent to the county for approval.

The proposed budget will then be presented to the public at a hearing set for the Thursday, March 21 meeting when details on the budget will be given.

Last March the Hasbrouck Heights district approved a budget with a 3.63 tax point increase amount to an extra $127 in taxes for the year.

Article was originally published at 5:50 a.m. Feb. 28. It was updated at 3:30 p.m. to reflect state aid figures released from the state and at 9:30 p.m to include information about the March 4 tenative budget meeting.