BY SUE M. MORGAN
Staff Writer

EATONTOWN — District voters could see their property taxes increase by slightly more than $6 monthly if they agree to fund a $12 million school tax levy to support the local Board of Education’s proposed budget of $17.4 million for academic year 2005-06.

The proposed spending plan, along with two separate questions asking for a collective total of $160,000 to fund computer upgrades and the hiring of a guidance counselor in the K-8 district, will be placed before voters during next Tuesday’s elections.

The latest tax levy amounts to $612,957 over the approved tax levy of $11.4 for the 2004-05 school year, an increase of 5.4 percent, according to Norma Tursi, the district’s business administrator.

If approved, property owners in Eatontown would see the school tax rate rise by 5 cents from the existing $1.07 to just over $1.12 per $100 of assessed valuation, according to district documents.

The overall tax impact amounts to a school tax hike of $6.35 monthly or $76.24 annually, on a property assessed at $150,000, the borough average, Tursi said.

The four-school district consists of three elementary buildings — Meadowbrook, Vetter and Woodmere schools, which house prekindergarten to sixth-graders — and Memorial School, a seventh- and eighth-grade school.

The computer upgrades and the new guidance counselor are needed to achieve the Core Curriculum Content Standards set by the state Department of Education, district documents state.

In one question, voters will be asked to approve $100,000 to be used exclusively for the purchase of new hardware, software licenses, server upgrades and switches for the computer labs in all four schools.

A second question requests $60,000 to pay the salary for a new guidance counselor for the entire district.

If both questions pass, the tax impact would amount to an additional 1.5 cents, amounting to a school tax rate of just over $1.14 per $100 of assessed valuation.

The overall property tax impact would be an additional $1.75 per month or $21 per year on a home assessed at the borough average of $150,000.

Even after Tuesday’s board elections are finished, the district expects to come before property owners again in late September when it floats an approximately $32 million school construction bond referendum for voter approval.

The school board is gearing up to sell the referendum, scheduled for Sept. 27, to the community as a way to obtain dwindling New Jersey School Construction Corp. (NJSCC) funding for building renovations and improvements to its aging schools.

In the meantime, eight candidates are looking to fill a total of four openings on the school board that will also come up for grabs on Tuesday.

Three of the four open seats are for three-year terms and one is a one-year unexpired term.

Three incumbents, John Schiels, Joseph Questore and Mark Kramer, are seeking to be returned for new three-year terms.

They are challenged by three newcomers, Stacey Lastella, Shannon Stoneham-Gaetano and Frank Cannella.

Candidates for the one, one-year expired term are Darlene Stoneham and George Marcouiller.

Two of the eight candidates have a familial connection to sitting board member Joseph Gaetano. Shannon Stoneham-Gaetano is the senior Gaetano’s daughter-in-law, and Cannella is his nephew.

Also, Darlene Stoneham is the mother of Stoneham-Gaetano. Stoneham and Marcouiller are running for the seat vacated by former board member Charles H. “Skip” Fischer, who resigned from the board last summer.