The Hopewell Valley Regional School District (HVRSD) financial outlook for the 2025-26 school year is being impacted by increased costs from inflation and in areas such as transportation.
However, the school district did receive some positive news when the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) released the district state aid amount – $6.8 million, which is an increase of $395,000 or 6.2%.
In a budget discussion on Feb. 24, Robert Colavita, assistant superintendent for business, explained that for revenues the 2025-26 school district budget includes the reimplementation of athletic and co-curricular fees for anybody participating in extracurricular activities next year.
“We are also going to continue with transportation fees and plan to fully charge for what it costs us to hold a seat, which right now is in and around $1,000 area per seat,” he said.
The school district will also have to decide on how much surplus they allocate into the budget, Colavita said.
“… last year, we used close to $4 million in surplus money, which is expenditures and revenues that went unspent for whatever reason,” he said.
“(Surplus) money can be used to help next year’s budget. $4 million is too much for us to sustain. We are trying to cut that number at least in half right now. That is what we are using as a basis for this year’s budget.”
Like other districts across the state, HVRSD continues to face increased costs from inflation.
“The health benefit waiver alone shows the state health benefit plan is increasing aggregate of 14%,” Colavita said. “It’s a split number – health benefits are going up 14%, prescriptions going up 25%, it nets out to 14%.
“It’s an astronomical number that all school districts in the state of New Jersey are dealing with.”
The school district is anticipating a 3.6% increase in transportation costs, and property and causality insurance, workers comp and student activities insurances are all increasing in addition to health benefits.
There will be continued costs of maintaining facilities, Colavita said noting the district’s youngest facility is 22 years old and the oldest have exceeded 100.
“Special Education a driving cost for this district,” Colavita said. “It is the outside tuitions that are charged by the private schools that are causing us the most consternation at this point.”
Superintendent Rosetta Treece added that private schools can raise their tuition rates at any point in the course of the year and have.
Staffing and health benefits in the district accounts for 80% of the budget, according to Colavita. Now the district is also dealing with the growth in Hopewell Valley and did not anticipate the number of students in seats as they have seen.
“They are coming as accounted for in that waiver that we are getting from the state for enrollment,” he added.
The impact will include class sizes. Colavita said the class sizes would not go up drastically but that class sizes in the teens may give way to class sizes in the low to mid-20s.
Possible reductions:
- Potential elimination of or charging the full cost of courtesy busing.
- A further reduction of supplies.
- Examination or phase out of World Language Course of Study (everything based on enrollment).
- Elimination of auto shop (school district has not been able to find a teacher).
- Elimination or reduction of district funded field trips (elimination of district funds for field trips/if field trips were to happen would be funded by parent pay or PTO pay).
- Reinstatement of extracurricular and activity fees (would provide around $200,000 in additional revenue to support those programs).
- Restructuring of K-12 exploratory offerings (elective type classes/ reducing based on enrollment).
- Elimination or consolidation of administrative positions.
On exploratory offerings, Treece added, “what we are trying to do right now is maintain all the programming we have in the elementary schools. We may not be able to do it at the frequency we used to do. We are looking at all the explanatories and how we can still offer those at a more cost-effective way to the district.”
