have broached idea
for school panel
Town may take next step
toward appointed board
Lakewood officials
have broached idea
for school panel
By dick metzgar
Staff Writer
Lakewood voters may be asked if they would prefer to have an appointed Board of Education rather than an elected board, which is currently in place.
It all depends upon what transpires from a resolution that is expected to be on the agenda at tonight’s Township Com-mittee meeting, according to Township Attorney Steven Secare. If passed by the committee, the resolution would request Lakewood’s school board to place a question on the ballot in the November general election asking voters if they would prefer an appointed board. The referendum would be nonbinding.
Because of financial difficulties the board has encountered in recent years, members of the governing body have proposed that the appointed board question be posed to residents to gauge their feelings on the issue.
This week, Township Committeeman Robert W. Singer, who is also a state senator, said he is still in favor of posing the question to the public.
"I don’t have the answers at this point," Singer said. "However, I would like to know how the public feels about changing to an appointed board. If we find that the people want an appointed board, then we can go about setting the machinery in motion to appoint a school board."
There are only a handful of appointed school boards in the state — 17 out of a total of 602 school boards in New Jersey — Frank Belluscio, a spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association, told the Tri-Town News, earlier this year.
Belluscio said there are, at present, no appointed school boards in Ocean County or Monmouth County.
In a district where the school board is appointed, the mayor appoints members for five-year terms in the case of a five-member board and three-year terms in the case of seven-member and nine-member boards. Under the present system in Lake-wood, the board has nine elected members who serve three-year terms.
School board members at the time of the switch may stay in office until the expiration of their respective terms.
Vacancies must be reported to the mayor immediately, who then has 30 days to appoint a qualified person to fill the vacancy for the expired term.
Despite the Lakewood school board’s financial problems in recent years, a sense of cooperation between the board and the governing body appeared to prevail in May when an agreement was reached to cut $652,500 from the board’s proposed 2002-03 school year budget. Township voters defeated the current expenses portion of the budget in the April school election.
Despite this apparent air of cooperation between the two bodies, Singer said he still would like to know how voters feel about establishing an appointed school board, which would put the panel under control of the governing body.
Under the present system, members of the school board are elected independently of the municipal governing body and the committee has no authority over any decision the board makes.
Singer said he feels the idea of having an appointed school board does have merits.
"I think that a five-member appointed board would be less cumbersome than a nine-member board that we have under the present system," Singer said. "It would give us more control over financial matters. The main issues are dollars and cents and sound education for the students. As I said, I don’t have the answers. I would like to know how the people feel about it."
Secare said the resolution to be considered by the committee tonight is the proper way to proceed in the matter.
"The committee’s resolution would request the board to approve its own resolution putting the question to the voters in the November general election," Secare said. "If the governing body’s resolution is approved, there is plenty of time for the board to act on its own resolution."