The proposed $112 million school district budget was approved unchanged Monday night, but with only one Maplewood township official on the Board of School Estimate voting in favor of the spending plan that raises the school tax rate by 3.98%.

The eight-person BOSE - which includes Maplewood TC members Vic De Luca, Kathy Leventhal and Lester Lewis-Powder - voted 6-2 in favor of the plan. But only Leventhal voted for the budget, with De Luca and Lewis-Powder casting votes against it. Both school board members and all three South Orange Village Trustees on the BOSE also approved the plan.

Several Maplewood officials had indicated concerns about the spending plan tax hike, wanting to cut it by as much as one percent during the first meeting on Wednesday. But they said the public had contacted them with urgency that nothing be cut from the plan, which could have forced a reduction in the teachers' slated for hire and increase some class sizes if cuts were made.

In the end, the majority of the joint board -- which is requird by law to approve the school district budget annually in lieu of a public vote -- approved the measure for the 2009-2010 school year.

"This budget minimizes the tax levy without jeopardizing the goals," Leventhal said in support of the plan. Several South Orange officials also spoke in favor, drawing hearty applause from the full house crowd.

But De Luca, Lewis-Powder and TC member Fred Profeta, an alternate on the BOSE, showed concern for the tax increase, even though it has been touted as the lowest in 20 years. "This is the largest percentage of the taxpayer dollar," Profeta said during the discussion, although he supported the budget as presented. Lewis-Powder, who noted he is the only Maplewood official with children in the district, also opposed it: "It supports the status quo, it does not move in the direction to address the achievement gap."

De Luca not only opposed the budget plan, but offered a proposal to reduce it by some $542,000. His plan would have kept the teachers set to be hired for all-day district-wide kindergarten, but woud have cut some other planned staff increases to other areas. "I think it should have been cut," he said after the vote. "I got outvoted. I wanted to cut the administration, which I thought was top-heavy."

Several BOSE members also urged that the budget review process begin much earlier, citing the fact that the BOSE had only two meetings in which to decide and both occurred within less than a week. "

School Board President Mark Gleason acknolwedged the time limits: "I heartily agree we need to start the proces earlier."

The vote was met with overwhelming applause.