JACKSON – Board of Education members want to restore the principle of majority rule as it pertains to special budget questions in the annual school board election.
In 2007, when Gov. Jon Corzine signed a bill into law that created a 4 percent cap on local school districts’ property tax levies, a part of that law came into existence that could have an effect on school districts this April.
“We are looking to restore the principle of majority rule as it pertains to budget questions,” said district spokesperson Jeanne Barbour.
According to the New Jersey School Boards Association (NJSBA), because of that legislation second ballot questions that are proposed by a local school board as part of the annual budget election “will have to receive affirmative votes by 60 percent of the voters who participate in the school election.”
The 60 percent standard is referred to as a supermajority.
In other words, if 1,000 people vote in the school election a second ballot question would need 600 yes votes to pass. Anything less than 600 yes votes would send the second ballot question to defeat. The law does not permit the defeat of the second ballot question to be appealed to the local governing body or to the commissioner of education.
The ballot question which asks voters to approve a local tax levy to support the upcoming school year’s operating budget will still only require a simple majority to pass.
According to the NJSBA, “second ballot questions request specific programs, items or services that, in most cases, involve expenditures above the budget cap.”
In addition to imposing a supermajority approval requirement, the new law also eliminates the authority of municipal governing bodies to review defeated second questions and allow the levying of taxes for all or part of the second ballot question proposals.
At its Jan. 15 meeting the Jackson Board of Education passed a resolution that requests its legislative representatives and the governor to amend the law to eliminate the provision of a supermajority vote for school district special questions and restore the principle of one person, one vote in New Jersey.
“There used to be a system of one person, one vote which worked well in terms of the voting public,” said the district’s communications specialist Allison Erwin. “We felt that as with everything else, the majority should rule. That is why we submitted and support this resolution.”
The board’s resolution states that New Jersey school districts are facing increased budgetary challenges to maintain effective and high quality educational programs.
Those constraints (caps) imposed by the recent legislation force many school districts to present high quality educational programs to district voters by means of special questions and imposes an unprecedented 60 percent majority vote requirement for a special question to be successful, according to the resolution.
The board said this requirement violates all principles of majority rule and gives people who vote in the negative a greater voice and control in their communities.
In an example of how the new law could have an impact on a second ballot question, last year the Freehold Borough School District Board of Education placed school-sponsored sports, extracurricular activities and the hiring of a part-time residency officer on a second ballot question.
The second ballot question was approved with 342 yes votes to 314 no votes (total of 656 voters).As a result, $75,000 in additional taxes was collected from Freehold Borough property owners and the programs that had been on the chopping block were provided.
With the supermajority law in effect this year, if that Freehold Borough election had the same turnout – approximately 656 voters, the second ballot question would need 394 yes votes (60 percent) to pass. An outcome of 342 yes votes to 314 no votes would result in the question’s defeat.