During Superintendent Vincent Sasso’s interview for the top job, he was asked to present to the board where he saw the district three years from now.
“I saw us three years from December 1 in a much better financial situation,” Sasso admitted.
But with rising healthcare costs growing at an unsustainable rate, he began the superintendent role running.
“From day one, we made a commitment on December 1st to face this head on,” Sasso said. “It started with one priority. Get our expenditures under control while protecting our students.
“And I’m talking about the over 8,000 students who make up this district, the 1,300 staff [members]. And this is certainly not an I thing. It’s a team.”
The Old Bridge Township Public Schools is coming off a substantial 9.9% tax levy increase from the 2024-25 budget. The Board of Education submitted a tentative budget requesting a loan due to a nearly $18 million structural deficit. It was denied.
Due to the impact of previous S-2 school funding formula cuts, the current funding formula, the use and depletion of reserves in previous budgets and an increase in expenditures greatly outpaced obtainable revenues. The board submitted a revised tentative budget with not only an unrealistic expectation but most notably an unacceptable baseline for a thorough and efficient education.
Per tax levy incentive aid program eligibility notices, the district’s Board of Education is marked as below adequacy in the amount of $30.44 million for the 2025-26 budget year
In five months, Sasso and his team are “way ahead of schedule.”
“We have been able to reduce our structural deficit in five months by over $11 million,” he said
The district is able to save over $2 million in staffing through 20 staff retirements.
“When you think about property insurance, we were faced with over 20 percent increases in personal property, workers’ compensation, and some of our different insurances,” Sasso said. “And through really hard work and negotiations with our brokers, [we were] able to get those numbers down into the single digits.”
The district looked at its professional educational service contracts, working one contract at a time.
“And when I talk about where we’re going and where we want to go with our health increases, it started by making this commitment a few months ago by going self-insured with our present prescription coverage plan,” Sasso said. “We looked at an over $1 million in savings right off the bat. And we hope that continues to grow.”
Officials spent long days and many hours combing the budget line by line.
“Every single expenditure in our budget, cutting $5,000 where we can, $25,000, sometimes even in the six figures wherever we can,” Sasso said. “And those conversations were difficult. And certainly moving forward, there’s going to be some tough times. There’s no question. And there’s going to be some changes in what we’re going to do. And some people might feel that a little bit, but again as a responsibility certainly to this community being able to do that was very, very important.”
School Business Administrator David Weidele presented the tentative $198.98 budget at a meeting on May 5. Initially the district needed to find $1.4 million to balance the budget.
The school district property tax rate will increase from $3.7 per $100 of assessed value to $4.3.
An Old Bridge Township property owner’s tax bill includes the municipal property tax, the municipal and open space taxes and Middlesex County property, open space and library taxes.
The owner of a house assessed at the township average of $158,052 will pay $6,859 in school district property taxes. The assessed value for property tax purposes is not the same as the market, or for-sale, value.
The property tax levy to support the 2026-27 budget is $166,742,927 million.
On May 12, Weidele presented the budget with revisions to eight budget categories. Program costs were decreased, maintenance and operation costs were increased, transportation and administrative costs were decreased and tuition and capital outlay were decreased.
Board members adopted the 2026-27 budget. Board President Elena Francisco, Board Vice President Kristina Mazzone, and members Jennifer D’Antuono, Richard Dunn, Marjorie Jodrey, and Jay D. Slade voted to support the budget.
Board members Matt Sulikowski and Brooke Richards-Patterson voted “no.” Board member Kiran Venkatesan was not present at the vote.
