On May 7, 2025, the Asbury Park Board of Education approved the 2025 – 2026 school budget (Budget) in a 5 to 4 vote and it will now represent a $38.1 million tax levy on the residents of Asbury Park to cover the new $63,730,380 total operating budget.

Voting “Yes” and in favor of raising taxes and this Budget were: President Tracy Rogers, Vice President Wendi Glassman, former Vice President Guiseppe “Joe” Grillo, newly appointed (not elected) teacher from Long Branch – Kristen Clark and Michael Penna.

Voting “No” and in favor of stabilizing taxes and having the district make necessary budget cuts were Dominic Latorraca, Jessie Ricks, Stephanie Ackerman and Barbara Lesinski.

Notable were the lack of any budget cuts proposed or made by the District’s Administration or Board leadership. Instead, the budget was based on the 2024- 2025 budget with anticipated increases for staffing raises and impending utility rate increases among other anticipated cost increases.

The District’s Administration presented the projected tax increase would be equivalent to an $8.00 increase per $100,000 of home assessed value based on a median household valuation of $638,000. Using this math, that would result in an approximate $51.04 average monthly tax increase.

After questions from the board, the District Administration confirmed that their $8.00 calculation was based on an older version of the estimated tax levy that included, among other things, the anticipated revenue from the sale of the Thurgood Marshall building. The District Administration was not able to provide a more accurate projection for the tax levy during the meeting.

In response, Board Member Guiseppe “Joe” Grillo commented the tax increase would be “around $50 a month” and that the pettiness about taxes should be set aside, and focus on the children instead. His message seemed to carry the tone of anyone who suggests or demands the district to make staff cuts to balance the budget do not care about the students.

Several teachers and members of the community spoke and implored the school board to not make any cuts to the Budget.

Specifically, Shade Maghsood, former appointed Board of Education member who lost in the November 2024 election, spoke by announcing she is a “homeowner of multiple properties in Asbury Park” and, “for less than $50 a month if you can’t afford it, go somewhere else.”

Fiscal responsibility and providing a good education are not mutually exclusive,our neighbors in Ocean Township just cut 27 positions, (18 of which were administration and support positions) and delayed several capital projects before presenting their residents with a $5 million tax increase. Clearly, Ocean Township knows what is involved in fiscally responsible budgeting and made efforts to minimize the impact to its taxpayers/residents.

Board members who questioned why 100% of the costs of the district were being passed on to the residents without a single cut were met with claims that they do not care about Asbury Park’s students, with a follow-up from Acting Superintendent Mark Gerbino that the only cuts available would be to cut one of the core curriculums, e.g., math, science or reading–which seems performative, because there are other choices in reducing budgets without cutting school programs.

It should be noted, none of the four “no” voting board members suggested cutting programs, but instead suggested looking at the large number of administrative positions and other staff (not programs) and reducing staff to balance or reduce the budget and strain on the taxpayers.

Based on the Board’s vote and refusal to consider or make a single cut, and, on figures provided by the district’s State Monitor, Asbury Park’s tax levy will be $38 million dollars. The taxpayers should be aware, their actual fair share is approximately $35 million, $3 million less than the $38 million levied tax in the Budget.

Mr. Grillo, in a reference to the November 2024 School Board election’s winning ticket, asked “how can you claim to want to “Improve Learning Now” while wanting to make cuts?” Member of the “Improve Learning Now!” ticket, Mr. Latorraca, responded with several examples including consolidation of school buildings to “shrink the number of areas” that the district is “maintaining without eliminating any programs” because “that is called fiscal responsibility.” “We are not talking about cutting a Special Ed program” but hoping to use the available resources in “more efficient and more effective” ways that “keep the community behind us.” He concluded that these are “issues that can be analyzed using facts”.

As an historical reference, the district’s school budget for 2024- 2025 was approximately $57,000,000. The total tax increase for 2025-2026 in the Budget is nearly $11 million higher than proposed during the March Board of Education meeting, due to the removal of the proposed revenue from the anticipated sale of the Thurogood Marshall school building.

The next Board of Education meeting is on May 22, 2025 at Bradley Elementary School at 6pm.

As a closing to this article, Deputy Mayor Amy Quinn, who normally attends the Board of Education meetings and stays throughout the public comment period, left the meeting after about 30 minutes when the topic of PILOTs (Payment In Lieu of Taxes) was being discussed. Further, with inferences the PILOTs were affecting the district budgets, a commenter was looking for the Deputy Mayor to inquire about the consequences of PILOTs, only to realize, she abruptly left the meeting – or so it appeared.