By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
ALLENTOWN — The Upper Freehold Regional Board of Education joined a growing number of school boards that have opted to switch school board elections to November in a move that also changes the process for adopting school budgets.
Under a new state law, school districts that move their elections from April to November can skip the step of obtaining voter approval for their budgets as long as the tax levy increase is held to 2 percent or less.
Districts have until Feb. 17 to decide whether to make the change, but those keeping April elections still must put their budgets on the ballot for voters to decide — even if the budget is within the cap.
The Upper Freehold Regional school board, which saw its $33 million budget defeated last year even though it was within the cap, voted 7-0 last week to make the switch to November elections.
”I’ve been following it very closely and, as of this morning, there are 137 school districts that have already passed this resolution so that is 25 percent of school districts, and that number keeps increasing every day,” Board of Education President Lisa Herzer said Feb. 1.
Two days later, the New Jersey School Boards Association reported that figure had increased from 137 to 167 districts.
The Upper Freehold Regional board’s action means residents of Allentown and Upper Freehold will not be voting on the new 2012-13 school budget as long as the tax levy increase is held to 2 percent or less.
Consolidating elections in November will save taxpayers in the Upper Freehold Regional district about $6,200, Business Administrator Diana Schiraldi said. In an April election, school districts are responsible for paying all election-related costs because its candidates are the only ones on the ballot, but these costs won’t be the responsibility of school districts in November when elections already are being held for federal, state, and county offices.
School board member Patrick Nolan said he was concerned that if the district did nothing, the cost of an April election could rise significantly as more districts in Monmouth County opted to move elections to November, leaving fewer school districts sharing the county’s election-related expenses for April elections.
Mr. Nolan asked Mrs. Herzer if any estimates were available on how much that $6,200 cost could rise if Upper Freehold Regional kept its elections in April.
”Can I quantify it? No, I’m not sure that the county can even quantify that at this point,” Mrs. Herzer said.
Board member Gregg Barkley said that, costs aside, he thought the likelihood of increased voter turnout in a November election was a compelling enough reason for abandoning April elections when relatively few people go to the polls.
Switching the 2012 election from April 17 to Nov. 6 also means the terms of four school board members, whose seats would have expired in April, now are extended automatically until Dec. 31. Mrs. Herzer, Howard Kreiger, Rick Smith and Eileen Heddy currently hold these four seats.
The school election in November will remain nonpartisan, meaning candidates who want to run still will be nominated by voter petitions, not political parties. School board candidates’ names will appear on a separate part of the election ballot, not under the Republican and Democratic Party columns.
Under the new law, anyone running for school board in a district with a November election has until primary day, which this year is June 5, to file nominating petitions.
In Upper Freehold, three of the seats on the Nov. 6 ballot are for full three-year terms and one is for a one-year unexpired term. Only Upper Freehold residents can run because Allentown is losing one of its three seats on the 10-member regional school board due to population shifts documented in the 2010 census. This means Mrs. Heddy, the only Allentown representative whose term expires this year, cannot run for re-election because Upper Freehold gains her seat in 2013.
The only public comment on the election resolution came from Peter Katz, of Upper Freehold, who said he thought residents may perceive it as improper for the board to act on the resolution because voting to push the election back to November meant the board also effectively was voting to extend its own terms.
The law signed by Gov. Chris Christie on Jan. 17 allows school board elections to be changed three ways — by the school board, by the governing bodies of all municipalities in the district or by voter referendum. A decision had to be made by Feb. 17 in order to change the April 2012 school elections, and once the elections are changed, they must remain in November for at least four years.
Mr. Katz said that while he agreed with switching to November elections, he thought the matter should have been decided either by voter referendum or by the Allentown Borough Council and Upper Freehold Township Committee instead of school board members themselves.
”You’ve now taken a vote on your own terms, extending them by 25 percent,” Mr. Katz said. “I know it had to be done quickly . . . but I think it’s something that the public may question the school board doing on their own.”
Other local communities in The Messenger-Press’ coverage area either already have made the switch to November elections or are poised to do so. Plumsted’s school board was scheduled to make its decision Feb. 8 after The Messenger-Press went to print, and the Millstone Board of Education is set to vote at its Feb. 13 meeting. The Robbinsville Board of Education voted Jan. 24 to move its elections.

