4% increase

Middlesex Borough property owners will see a roughly 4% increase in their school taxes after the Board of Education approved a $50 million budget for the 2024-25 academic year.

The board okayed the budget on Wednesday, May 1 with board member Shannon Quinn the lone dissenting vote.

Under the new spending plan, the theoretical average Middlesex home – assessed at roughly $425,000 will see a $198 increase in its school tax bill.

That increase is in addition to any caused by the Borough Council and Middlesex County budgets.

The district serves approximately 2,055 pupils, including 373 special education students and 176 multi-lingual students.

The borough district anticipates $17,289,575 in state aid in the new budget. That’s up from the $14,832,456 received for the current academic year.

School Superintendent Dr, Roberta Freeman explained a series of new positions that will be added under the 2024-25 budget.

The new positions include:

• Teacher, teacher assistant and aide for the Autism Program at Hazelwood School; six kindergarten teacher assistants; a grades 4 and 5 ICR/resource teacher at Woodland School; as well as a guidance counselor at Woodland.

• Von E. Mauger School will add an eighth grade resource room teacher and a part-time world language teacher. The district will also add a School Counselor (LCSW); Board-Certified Behavioral Analyst (BCBA); three Registered Behavioral Therapists; a maintenance worker and two administrative assistants.

The kindergarten assistants are needed due to  “fairly large” kindergarten class sizes, Freeman said. It’s been determined that an intermediate level guidance counselor is needed at Woodland, she added.

The PT language teacher is needed to compensate for a former position that was split with MHS but will now be devoted full-time to the high school. The district will employ a BCBA and the RBT’s rather than pay for them on a contractual basis. One of the new administrative assistants will work at MHS, the other in human resources.

The budget includes the following capital projects: a generator for Middlesex High School, fire alarm upgrades at Parker and Watchung schools, and entrance soffit repairs at Mauger.