SCHOOL BOARDS: Officials choose November elections

By John Tredrea, Special Writer
   The school boards of Lambertville Public School, South Hunterdon Regional High School, Stockton Borough School and West Amwell Elementary School have decided to hold their school district elections at the same time as the November general election, rather than in April.
   School board elections once were held in February and candidates filed for board seats in December. The change to April elections came in 1979.
   A new state law permits the boards to make the switch to November. However, now that decisions have been made, the four local boards, under the law, must wait four years before they would be allowed to change back to April elections, if they wished to do so.
   The Stockton school board voted Jan. 23 to make the change to November.
   ”The Stockton Board felt that making this change would be in the best interest of the local taxpayers,” said board President Jim Gallagher. “I think people would be surprised if they knew how much holding a separate school election costs our community. State and county officials advised us that our election costs would actually increase if we did not move the election date to November. We are also hopeful that the date change will result in increased voter participation in school elections.”
   Kerry Sevilis, business administrator for the South Hunterdon Regional district, added: “At its meeting on Jan. 19, the South Hunterdon Regional High School Board of Education approved a resolution to move its school elections to November. As per the law, this action will be in effect for four years.”
   LPS board member Grant Miller confirmed that his district had made the switch to November as well. “We voted at our last board of education meeting on Jan. 17 to move our school elections to November,” Mr. Miller said.
   West Amwell Elementary board member Peter Gasparro said likewise. “We voted at our last board of education meeting, on Jan. 17, to move our school elections to November.”
   Board members (of all four boards) whose terms were set to expire in April 2012 will now serve until reorganization meetings that will take place the first week of January 2013, unless they are re-elected for another term in the November 2012 elections. Board members will be non-partisan, unlike those running for municipal, county, state and federal offices.
   According to Mike Yaple, public affairs officer for the New Jersey School Boards Association, “with November school board member elections, candidates will be required to submit nominating petitions (the document that places their name on the ballot) to the Hunterdon County clerk, not to the local school board offices. The deadline to submit nominating petitions will be June 5 (primary election day), 2012.”
   WHAT ABOUT SCHOOL BUDGETS?
   According to a state education official, for school districts that remain with the April election cycle, nothing changes. Schools still will operate on a July 1 to June 30 fiscal year.
   For those going to November board-member elections, the budget vote will be eliminated if the budget is under cap. Such districts would still operate on a July 1 to June 30 fiscal year.
   However — If a district moved to November elections and wanted to spend over cap, the school board could ask the voters to allow it to do so. In that case, voters would vote only on the portion over cap. The school board would create a temporary budget for the school year (one that details how the budget would be if the request for additional spending was rejected). If voters reject the additional spending, the temporary budget would become the budget the board must work with.
   According to a South official, additional spending proposals (like SHRHS did with the recent regionalization study funding question) will be allowed as separate questions on the November ballot if needed. Additional elections for referendums also would allowed four times a year — January, March, September and December — if needed.
    Ruth Luse, managing editor, contributed to this account.