By: Dick Brinster
EAST WINDSOR Bonnie Fayer plans to push hard for passage of the school budget as she seeks a third three-year term on the East Windsor Regional Board of Education.
"I think we really have to get a message out," she said Wednesday. "It has to be that to continue the improvement in these schools we have to pass the budget."
The district’s spending measure has been defeated in each of the last two years. In 2006, the combined councils of the municipalities shaved nearly a half-million dollars from a $79.2 million budget.
This year, it will be decided by voters in the township and Hightstown on April 17. Also on the ballot is a referendum question in which voters will be asked to decide whether to establish an all-day kindergarten program, which Schools Superintendent Ron Bolandi has said will cost $1.345 million.
Ms. Fayer, who has joined board Vice President Bob Laverty as a candidate, is hoping a glowing state assessment earlier this month of the district’s academic improvement over the last two years will convince voters to back the budget.
But she said the district, like others in the state, needs help from Trenton.
"The state has to start kicking in their fair share to the budget," she said, alluding to no increase in aid over the last five years.
Ms. Fayer, seeking one of three expiring seats from East Windsor which holds seven of nine positions on the board said she plans to file her nominating petition later this week. The deadline is 4 p.m. Monday, and as of Wednesday no petitions had been filed, according to board Secretary Kurt Stumbaugh.
The term of board member Ric Perez also is expiring. He has not returned phone messages seeking comment on his plans.
Mr. Laverty, Ms. Fayer and Mr. Perez were elected in 2001, when they unseated three incumbents. There was no opposition to the three board members when they sought re-election in 2004.
Ms. Fayer said she has not spoken to Mr. Laverty, who said he plans to file later this week or Monday, about teaming up as they did in 2001.
Ms. Fayer, a stay-at-home mother, has two sons in district schools, one a sixth-grader at Melvin H. Kreps Middle School and the other in the third grade at Ethel McKnight Elementary School.
Candidate kits can be obtained at the administrative wing at Hightstown High School, 25A Leshin Lane. Questions concerning the kits can be answered through calls to Mr. Stumbaugh’s office at 443-7717, extension 2028.

