Tentative School Budget Prepared

By Chris Lundy TOMS RIVER

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School officials put together a tentative budget to present to the state but are holding out hope for more of a cushion.

The tentative 2023-2024 budget is $270,435,500. Of this, $186,903,573 is to be raised by taxes. The amount to be raised in taxes increased by $7,875,116 from the current year, which was $179,028,457.

However, this budget anticipates $13,346,822 in additional requested state aid.

Toms River is one of many districts that have lost aid consistently since 2018 due to a funding formula referred to as S-2. This redirected money from some schools with lowering enrollment to schools with growing enrollment. However, the exact formula has never been revealed to the public.

The Toms River district had been anticipating a loss of aid in the amount of $2,688,937. Instead, they received a surprise cut of $14,421,851.

In response to several towns throughout the state protesting cuts like these, state lawmakers passed a bill that said if a district suffered from a reduction in aid under S-2 for the 2023-2024

(School - See Page 5)

By Bob Vosseller

SEASIDE HEIGHTS – An April Fool’s Day Saint Patrick’s Day Parade? Would that mean an event chock full of shenanigans?

For the second year in a row, the Ocean County Saint Patrick’s Day Parade was postponed until April. This year, it took place on April 1. It was a rain or shine event and unfortunately, it rained.

The postponement didn’t stop people like Debbie Burghart-Platt and (Parade - See Page 4)

This Month In History:

Remembering Great Losses

By J. Mark Mutter

April, a tough month in history: the death of two presidents, the killing of a religious leader, and a catastrophe off the Jersey coast. Here’s how Toms River reacted.

1865: Abraham Lincoln

On Friday night -

Good Friday - April 14, 1865 President Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a performance at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. He died the next morning. The first American President to be assassinated, Lincoln’s death sent shockwaves throughout the nation.

Toms River at that time was a small village which 15 years earlier had been named the seat of the newly created Ocean County. It had one weekly newspaper - the Ocean Emblem. It referred to Lincoln as the “Great Martyr of Freedom” and reported that the Secretary of War had determined that “the conspiracy of the assassination was concocted in Canada.”

Toms River had a favorable view of Abraham Lincoln. While New Jersey supported his opponents in the elections of 1860 and 1864 - the only northern state to do so - that was not the case here.

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By Andrey Nalbantov OCEAN COUNTY -

In 1860, Lincoln carried our town by a wide margin and in 1864 he was again supported in a campaign against one of his generals, George McClellan (who he had relieved of command) who was a resident of New Jersey at the time.

While Toms River mourned Lincoln’s (History - See Page 6)

As a powerful language model, ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize schoolwork by providing students with instant access to information, personalized assistance, and innovative learning tools. While ChatGPT can be a valuable tool for students, there is a risk of over-reliance on technology and a lack of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The previous two paragraphs reflected both sides of the ChatGPT coin, but they also had another role in this article. Those two paragraphs were written by ChatGPT itself, when asked how it might affect education in both positive and negative manners. Released at the end of November, the chatbot created and founded by Sam Altman took the (AI - See Page 9)

Parade: Continued From Page 1 members of her family from celebrating on the weekend of the original date – March 11. They had already booked a hotel room in Seaside Heights and had made plans.

“We celebrated my big sister’s birthday but although the parade was canceled, the boardwalk was packed with revelers, even in the nasty rain,” she said.

“Some of the bars still put their green beer out and I guess they will do it all over again on April 1 when the parade happens,” Platt added.

Traditionally, the borough-based parade is held on the second Saturday of March. The Belmar Saint Patrick’s Day Parade - which began before Ocean County’s parade - kicks off the Irish heritage season at the Jersey Shore. The Asbury Park Saint Patrick’s Day Parade is held later in the month, sometimes on Saint Patrick’s Day itself. The COVID-19 pandemic prevented the parade from taking place in 2021and despite its postponement, it garnered a decent sized crowd last year as well as this year.

The Ocean County parade once again kicked off around noon, between I and J streets in Seaside Park and moving toward Heiring Avenue.

For the Robbins family of Manchester, the parade is a tradition so Tim Robbins joined his son Trevor, 8, and his mother Donna Robbins for the event with chairs positioned in front of the Snooki Shop.

Donna Robbins said “I’m a third Irish. This is pretty much a tradition.”

“She’s one of the original teachers of the Manchester Middle School. She was hired even before it was built,” her son said.

As for the rain, “mother nature does what she does. We were definitely going to come no matter what. It is a tradition,” he added. He and his son were in green wearing shamrocks that lit up.

Another visitor from Manchester, Vince Robinson, said, “we’ve been coming for years and we enjoy the parade. It was a smaller crowd this year but that’s okay.”

“Seaside Heights Mayor Tony Vaz was my teacher. I was his star pupil so he knows me,” Robinson said. The mayor and members of the Borough Council strolled down the parade route a bit later dressed in green suit jackets.

“We enjoy coming out and seeing the people. This year we didn’t have to worry about anyone standing in front of you,” his cousin Rich Robinson of Lakewood remarked. He noted his cousin’s emerald attire that included his footwear and said “he looks like he’s impersonating a lima bean.” school year, they would receive 66% of the cut aid back.

They joined two other friends who were sitting in front of the Montes Café which serves up Mexican food.

The parade featured plenty of pipe and drum bands and bagpipers and representatives of Seaside Park were there to remind people that the borough is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year.

Popular celebration points such as Klee’s Irish Pub were keeping busy. Klee’s is also a parade sponsor. Ryan’s Deli and Grill staff were once again busy dishing out corned beef sandwiches to parade watchers who wanted a spot of lunch before and during the parade.

For the second year in a row the band The Drunken Clams rocked the post parade party held at the Hershey Motel on the Boulevard.

The State Senate and Assembly passed their versions, and the governor has said he will sign it. This will add approximately $9.5 million in aid for the district.

This additional money would be Supplemental Stabilization Aid, and it would only be a one-time award. A district will have to write to the Commissioner of Education with a plan on how they will use the fund, and how they will manage in future years if they don’t get the same kind of stabilization again.

“Toms River doesn’t have a spending problem, it has a revenue problem,” Superintendent Michael Citta said during a recent Board of Education meeting. When the board voted on a resolution opposing the cut, the board members couldn’t chime in fast enough.

Citta thanked other elected officials for passing their own resolutions or in some other way speaking out against it.

A resident, Maria Mitchell, shared her concern about what might be cut from the budget.

“We’re not cutting programs. We don’t have enough programs for kids in Toms River,” Citta said. He said there’s never any guarantee, but none of the board or administration members want to see cuts.

“Have faith, stand firm, stay ready. We will rally around each other for whatever we need to do,” he said.

Mitchell asked about how the public can help, for example writing to state officials. In the past there have been busloads of people protesting in Trenton.

“You can certainly reach out to legislators with your concern,” but the ones he has spoken to are already in agreement with the district, he said. As for anything more dramatic, like a protest, he said he didn’t want to derail the path of diplomacy that seems to be working.

The district is made up of several towns and each will be impacted differently by the budget. On average, Toms River homeowners would see an increase of $154.45 per year. South Toms River would see an increase of $14.60 per year. Beachwood would see a decrease of $44.03 per year. Pine Beach’s numbers were not available since they recently went through a re-assessment.

The public hearing on the budget will be on April 26 at 7:30 p.m. in the High School North auditorium.

History: Continued From Page 1

loss, this was not the case elsewhere. A farmer in Cape May dressed his hog pen in black and those with southern sympathies in Princeton paraded in joy. The Emblem reported that a notorious “Copperhead”

- northerners who sided with the Confederacy - living near Waterbury, New Jersey displayed a flag with the banner “The Devil Is Dead.” A group of men went to the home of the “scoundrel” and demanded the flag and threatened the man’s hanging unless he recanted.

Such sentiments were not the case here. Toms River flew American flags to mourn the slain president.

1933: The USS Akron

The USS Akron was a U.S. Navy air ship that had used the military base at Lakehurst in its travels as it did tests and exercises out over the Atlantic Ocean and the eastern part of the continental United States. It was the world’s first flying aircraft carrier carrying fighter planes which could be launched while it was in flight.

On April 4, 1933, the Akron crashed off the Jersey coast killing 73 crewmen and passengers. The New Jersey Courier, one of the then-local newspapers, reported the disaster. In its April 7 edition, the headline banner said “Akron Went Down Off Barnegat” and the accompanying news article reported that the “cause of the wreck is not known except that she was caught in a vio - lent storm.” In a column called “Locals,” the newspaper announced “Goodbye Akron! A sad week this is.” In another column entitled “Ocean County Appalled by Catastrophe,” the newspaper stated that “for the second time, Ocean County is appalled by catastrophe,” noting the loss in 1925 of the USS Shenandoah over Ohio.

The Courier reported that “officers and men from the Akron were known about Toms River, Lakewood, and Lakehurst. The officers had been making the Cranmoor Country Club (in Toms River) their playground this past year.”

The Courier feared that with the loss of the Akron that the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst would be forced to shut down and that airship operations would move to the west coast: “Toms River will feel sick if the Naval Air Station is closed.”

The station remained open - to suffer a disaster, on site, in 1937 when the German dirigible, The Hindenburg, crashed and burned. The base at Lakehurst is still with us today - part of the military’s Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. The Courier’s fears of its closing never materialized.

1945: Franklin D. Roosevelt

With the fighting in Europe soon to end in the Second World War, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was on a working vacation at his “Little White House” when he suffered a massive stroke and died. The nation was grief stricken. Many younger Americans had only known FDR as their president as he had been in office for 12 years having

(History - See Page 14)