BHPSNJ Referendum Breakdown…. Soft Costs, Maintenance, and Inflation Risks?
The Berkeley Heights Board of Education has submitted a $50.3 million pre-referendum budget estimate to the New Jersey Department of Education for review. We requested this information through OPRA which led to another display of willful ignorance and petty bureaucratic power plays — but that’s for another article. One of the documents received was a Scope/Budget Analysis of what the...
BHPSNJ Provides Updated School Level Budget
Sort of. After months of OPRA requests, multiple files, and a lot of back and forth, we finally have something that resembles the building-level budget detail I originally asked for. Roughly adding up the data provided, the total comes to about $6 million — less than 10% of the District’s full $~60 million budget for 2025-26. In other words, even...
Berkeley Heights Public School Budget Data Still Withheld, Police Invoices Missing
Last week, I published No Names, No Budgets: Transparency Continues to Erode Under Feltre, documenting how Berkeley Heights Public Schools continues to obstruct public records requests. Since then, the district has finally provided a document — but what they released makes the problem even clearer. The file they produced covers a small subset of the full $63 million 2025–26 budget...
No Names, No Budgets: Transparency Continues to Erode Under Feltre
When people ask for answers from their local government, they have a right to get them—clearly, directly, and without delay. That’s the whole idea behind New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA). But in Berkeley Heights, trying to get even basic information from the public school district has turned into an exercise in frustration: dodged questions, generic email replies, and...
BHPSNJ District Opens Search for Business Administrator Ahead of July Transition
On Friday, May 2, Applitrack—the platform used by Berkeley Heights Public Schools to manage job postings—listed an opening for the position of “Business Administrator/Board Secretary,” effective July 1, 2025. The listing follows recent Board of Education meetings during which some residents noted that the current Business Administrator’s contract was not among the recent renewals—making the posting anticipated by many. The...
2025-2026 BHPSNJ Budget – Full Detail and Snapshots
We received a version of the 2025-2026 BHPSNJ Detailed budget from the District yesterday. We cleaned up the formatting and added a tab menu. You can download it here. Some quick snapshots from the spreadsheet are below but before we get started on that it might be good to point out a slide from the New Providence BOE Budget Meeting....
More Notes on Security Spending – 25-26 BHPSNJ Budget
Over the last three school years, security spending in the Berkeley Heights Public Schools has ballooned — far exceeding original budget estimates while state aid has remained flat. What the Numbers Show 2023–2024: The District budgeted $214,000 for school security but ended up spending $260,396, according to the official ACFR (Annual Comprehensive Financial Report). That’s a 22% overrun in a...
Budget Withheld, Questions Unanswered
A prior version of this article incorrectly indicated that the year to year increase on security spending was 62%, this is incorrect- that actual percentage is 42% from the 2023-2024 actual amount. (04/24/2025) How budget opacity, inflated security costs, and stalled academic progress are failing our students. In both 2023 and 2024, I was able to secure the line item...
Laura’s Notes on the 04/24/2025 Berkeley Heights BOE Meeting Agenda -Budget and Policies
Let’s hope this meeting stays focused and free of unnecessary theatrics. Many have questioned why the Board scheduled this meeting at Governor Livingston High School to coincide with a GL concert. Whether this was an oversight or an intentional move to suppress attendance remains unclear—but the optics haven’t gone unnoticed. Superintendent’s Report: Referendum Survey Results The Superintendent is expected to...
If Given the Choice, Would Private Schools Really Be A Better Deal for Berkeley Heights?
Given the high per-pupil cost of Berkeley Heights Public Schools (BHPSNJ) and ongoing discussions about declining enrollment despite rising expenses, I wanted to end the 2025 Budget series by seeing how BHPSNJ stacks up against private schools in terms of cost. I selected five private K-8 schools and five private high schools to compare their tuition costs with BHPSNJ’s reported...
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