Verona’s Town Council and Board of Education have a history of informal cooperation and occasional conflict. In an effort to have more of the former with less of the latter the two bodies will be holding a joint session on Monday, October 24.
The BOE will be providing updates on its strategic plan, academic progress, buildings and facilities, while the Council will give an update on recreation services, its shared services agreement and the payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) that it collects from several properties in town.
While 55% of normal property taxes collected by the town are turned over to the BOE, the PILOT funds are not now shared with the public education budget: 95% of PILOT monies go to the town and 5% to Essex County. The two luxury apartment buildings on Verona’s Hilltop turned the PILOT structures into a thorn because the buildings will be a growing source of revenue for Verona.
Before Joe Martin stepped down as Verona’s town manager, he used some of the Hilltop PILOT monies to fill gaps in Verona’s municipal budget. The Hilltop PILOT funds will pay the debt service on the 20-year bonds Verona approved in 2013 for the Hilltop Phase II sports complex, known now as Freedom and Liberty fields. But under the terms of the agreement that set up the PILOT, the revenue sent by the apartments to town will increase year after year. As of 2029, the Hilltop PILOT will generate more than $1 million in funds for the town, rising to $1.43 million in 2041.
The BOE has said repeatedly that it would like to see some of the Hilltop PILOT revenue shared with the school district. There have also been some tense moments in the discussions over the conversion of the Annin Flag factory into apartments. It will be subject to a PILOT and there were concerns that its residents could send more children to Brookdale Avenue Elementary School, the smallest of Verona’s four public elementary schools. (The developers behind the conversion say that they have sized the apartments to be less appealing to families.)
The joint meeting will be held at the Verona Community Center at 880 Bloomfield Avenue beginning at 7 p.m.
