Taxes

The Board of Education was told at its March 19 meeting that staff cuts would be necessary to fill a budget gap if substitute teachers were not outsourced. Teacher and paraprofessional layoffs and a slight property tax increase are in the offing under a $142 million preliminary 2014-2015 school year operating budget approved March 19 by the Board of Education. …

The township has had to replace about 30 mailboxes damaged by snow plows this season. This year’s rash of heavy snow storms has forced the township to so far spend about 2.5 times the average in snow removal costs. Don’t Miss Out! No other media outlet covering Franklin Township brings you the depth of information presented by the Franklin Reporter …

Purchases worth $53,950 and a number of professional and service contracts were awarded by the Township Council at the March 11 meeting. The council approved the $44,000 purchase of technical support for land development software from Spatial Data Logic of Somerset through Feb. 28, 2015. The software is used by a number of township departments, including building, land use, code …

Former schools Superintendent Edward Seto at his last Board of Education meeting, Jan. 29, 2014. The Board of Education paid its attorney nearly $20,000 for legal work connected with negotiating with the former schools Superintendent to leave his position before his contract ran out. Don’t Miss Out! No other media outlet covering Franklin Township brings you the depth of information …

School district business administrator John Calavano said the district did not receive funding for all the referendum-related grants for which it applied because the state could not fund all the applications it received. With nearly $4 million guaranteed for the proposed $85 million school referendum eyed for September, the Board of Education Feb. 27 approved applications for more than $79.7 …

The Franklin Township school district will receive about $13.2 million in state aid in the 2014-2015 school year, a 1.2 percent increase over this year’s aid. State aid to the district was flat for the 2013-2014 school year, coming in at the same $12,991,848 as in the 2012-2013 school year. The district saw a $1.4 million bump – nearly 12 …

Interim schools Superintendent Eveny Pagan said that outsourcing the district’s paraprofessionals is no longer on the table for the 2014-2015 school year, but that other staff reductions “are still in the equation.” The school district is no longer considering outsourcing its 123 paraprofessionals as a means to bridge a $1.7 million budget gap, but it has not ruled out some …

Two contracts worth $69,000 were approved by the Township Council at its Feb. 25 meeting. The largest of the two, worth $55,000 a year, was awarded to Joseph Smentkowski, Inc. of Jersey City for servicing the township mini-dump. The two-year contract expires on Feb. 28, 2016. Don’t Miss Out! No other media outlet covering Franklin Township brings you the depth …

Board of Education member Robert Trautmann submitted his resignation on Feb. 24. Robert Trautmann, a Board of Education member in the middle of his first term, has resigned. Don’t Miss Out! No other media outlet covering Franklin Township brings you the depth of information presented by the Franklin Reporter & Advocate. Period. We are the only truly independent media serving …

All proposed budgets passed in last week’s Fire District elections. The results from the Feb. 15 vote are as follows: Don’t Miss Out! No other media outlet covering Franklin Township brings you the depth of information presented by the Franklin Reporter & Advocate. Period. We are the only truly independent media serving the Eight Villages. But we can only do …