Teachers Ask Residents to Send an Urgent Message to Montgomery School District Leaders; "Stop Chipping Away at Our Stellar Reputation"

By Barbara A. Preston | Posted April 27, 2025

The Montgomery Township Education Association is asking Montgomery and Rocky Hill residents to, please reach out to school board members as a concerned education advocate to express their concern at "what’s been occurring in the Montgomery Township School District."

The MTEA letter says, “Instead of creating a place where students can thrive, the Board of Education continues to deliberately squander financial resources, leaving staff positions and educational programs vulnerable and up for potential elimination.”

The MTEA is urging residents to use the template — click here to view suggested letter — to send a message to school leaders as soon as possible.

MTEA members, mostly teachers, expressed their concerns about the 2025 budget at recent school board meetings.

The proposed budget

The proposed Montgomery school district budget calls for a 2% increase in spending. Unfortunately, employee health benefits have increased 6.7% and state aid will decrease by 3%.

The Montgomery Education Association, mostly teachers, want the school district to use a “health care waiver” to help cover inflated health care costs for employees.

With the waiver, Montgomery is legally allowed to raise school taxes by 2.8%. This is something the school board and school administrators are considering. However, the school district must make changes to the budget by April 29, the date of the public hearing and final adoption of the budget.

Will Montgomery Decide to Fund a 2% Budget Increase?

Board Member Joanna Filak, who is up for re-election this year, made comments indicating that more cuts may be made to the tentative 2025-26 budget.

“This is still a preliminary budget,” Filak explained at the last board meeting. “We are still looking through some of the accounts. ... I would also hope to see cuts in the professional piece.”

Regarding the “professional piece,” School Business Administrator Andrew Italiano, who presented the 2025-26 tentative budget in late March, answered that his role is to gather information from the budget managers. These professionals are the school administrators and principals who put in their budget requests each year.

Property Taxes

School funding has long been a contentious issue in New Jersey, where property owners pay the bulk. In Montgomery Township and Rocky Hill, taxpayers pick up 83.5% of the cost. State aid adds about 8.9%, and the remainder includes grants, and reserves.

As it looks now, a Montgomery Township resident with a home valued at $800,000 would pay $18,539.98 in school property taxes for 2025-26. This would represent an increase of $16.64 over the current year.

Rocky Hill school taxes would actually go down. A home valued at $800,000 in Rocky Hill would pay $10,085.18 in school taxes. This would represent a decrease of $46.69 from last year. (In comparison to  Montgomery, Rocky Hill has about 250 households and pays for the number of students who attend the school district in proportion to its total population). 

If the school board decides to use the waiver, it would add between $150 to $187 per household in annual property taxes for an average Montgomery home valued at $849,000. It would cost the average Rocky Hill homeowner an extra $85 to $106 a year for an average home valued at $717,000.

Advertisement

Board member Michelle Dowling expressed that she wants to better understand the ramifications of the proposed budget. “In addition to the position reductions and the facility reductions, I would like to better understand how that is affecting programming, and where the cuts would actually [be made].”

The Board of Education, to this day, has not disclosed what the proposed cuts would be.