When the Haddonfield Board of Education convenes on Thursday, one topic will dominate the agenda: money. At its work session, the B.O.E. will hold a formal discussion as a “committee of the whole” about the budget for the 2026-2027 school fiscal year, which begins on July 1. In a sign of the tough choices ahead, the school board and district administration have started budget discussions and consultations earlier than previous years. Superintendent of Schools Charles Klaus, calling the task ahead “challenging” at a school board meeting in December, said he wanted to be more open with the community about the process. When the preliminary budget is voted on in March, he said, “people will know where we are, how we got there, and the decisions along the way.”

The fiscal challenge facing the Haddonfield schools is formidable. Without any cuts, the school district’s expenditures are projected to increase nearly $4.5 million compared to last year’s budget, according to Mr. Klaus’ presentation to the school board on January 29th. (The operating budget, known as the General Fund, is separate from the spending on construction projects that voters approved in the 2024 bond referendum.) More than half of that is increased spending on salaries and health insurance, which cannot be substantially lowered without reducing staff numbers through voluntary departures or layoffs. 

Raising taxes enough to close the gap without any other changes would be legally impossible. The nominal cap on the amount a New Jersey school district can raise property taxes is 2% annually; however, after applying allowable adjustments, Haddonfield’s school tax levy could be raised a maximum of 6.45% this year. That would equate to a $513 increase for the average home in the borough, but even the maximum tax hike would leave a gap of $722,855, necessitating cuts to appropriations.

Many spending categories are under scrutiny or on the chopping block as district leaders search for ways to close that gap. “There’s going to be pain points for everybody in this,” Mr. Klaus said at the school board’s January 22nd meeting. “No one’s going to come out of this unscathed.” Stipends for club advisors, middle school athletics, and freshman sports teams, which add up to more than $507,000, have been singled out as high-cost discretionary spending across multiple budget documents that the district has released publicly. Spending on substitute services and school bus transportation, which had large projected increases, is also being reviewed, Mr. Klaus has told the board. Co-presidents Jason Rosenberg and Adrienne Goldenberg of the Haddonfield Education Association, the union representing teachers and support staff members, said that their discussions with district administrators about ideas for cost savings “have been all over the place, from health care, to technology and curriculum resources, to district sponsorships, to energy efficiency.”

Students at the Memorial High School are split on what programs to prioritize. Olivia Goettner ‘27 said she would support reducing spending on freshman sports, saying that those students could play at the junior varsity level. Jack Brand ‘27, a sprinter for the Haddons’ track and field team, wanted freshman athletics to be protected. “They’re a pivotal point in a young person’s life, and I think it’s essential that we allow them to compete at the highest level,” he said. Harrison Berman ‘27, another track athlete and the junior class president, said that stipends for clubs should be re-evaluated to focus on the highest-impact clubs. 

The largest portion of increased spending, however, remains staff salaries and benefits, and reductions in staff have not been ruled out. The budgetary impact of one teacher position is about $100,000, according to district documents, which translates to a 0.23% change in taxes. Mr. Rosenberg and Ms. Goldenberg, the union co-presidents, called budget cuts that would reduce staffing and programming “about as serious as it gets in education.” They said that staff cuts would lead to “increased class sizes, fewer course offerings, and fewer available resources.” Jacob Shiller ‘26 agreed that “it should be a last resort.” He said that with the staff shortage in the high school’s physics department that has affected his classes, “even more cuts would just further put them in a deeper hole.”