Incumbents Pepe and Burke lose school board seats to Krieger and Skube.
By: Cynthia Koons
UPPER FREEHOLD The Upper Freehold Regional School District’s $23 million budget failed by a total of 12 votes Tuesday night, with Allentown residents approving the budget and Upper Freehold voters defeating it.
For the Allentown seat on the school board, Robert Cheff earned 118 votes in an uncontested race. In Upper Freehold, incumbents Betty Jane Pepe and Shari Burke lost to newcomers Howard Krieger and Frank Skube, who earned 319 and 276 votes, respectively.
A total of 785 voters turned out from a pool of 4,508 registered voters in both towns combined. Of that number, 380 approved the budget and 392 voted it down.
"It was a very, very close race with very high turnout," Superintendent Bob Connelly said. "We knew that it was going to be difficult. The board and the administration are convinced of the need of everything in the budget."
He said the biggest challenge for the district was managing student enrollment growth over the past few years.
"The uphill battle for us was, in the three-year period that we grew by 300 students, our state aid stayed the same," Dr. Connelly said.
"I’m sorry that it lost," he said. "I’m glad that there was high interest and that it was as close as it was. We knew it was going to be difficult given the fact that state aid was frozen while we were growing.
"There’s statewide concern about school funding and the reliance on local property taxes," Dr. Connelly said. "It’s a hard race to run."
The largest growth in the budget this year, he said, was in staffing the new addition to the high school. The board was proposing the addition of five elementary school teachers as well as an English, world language, social studies and gym teacher for Allentown High School.
The budget called for a 14-cent tax increase in Allentown and a 13-cent raise in Upper Freehold.
For Allentown homeowners with a home valued at the borough average of $150,000, the tax increase would have equated to $210 more in school taxes in the coming year at the proposed $2.26 tax rate.
In Upper Freehold where the average home is valued at $240,000, property owners with homes at that value would have seen a $312 tax increase if voters approved the $2.06 tax rate.
Now, Dr. Connelly said, the school board, the Upper Freehold Township Committee and Allentown Borough Council must come to an agreement on the budget.
"The board reorganizes on April 30 so that board will have to strategize as to how they will address the defeat," he said.
With the municipal governments and school board weighing in, a resolution on the budget must be reached by May 19.
"It’s a tight deadline," Dr. Connelly said. "It’s a three-party process. We hope we can work together to address this problem."

