Voters overwhelmingly reject
proposed Lakewood school tab
LAKEWOOD — In a resounding defeat, voters rejected the Board of Educa-tion’s proposed budget for the 2003-04 school year in the April 15 election.
The board proposed an $86.4 million budget that called for a tax levy of $50.6 million and an increase in the school tax rate from $1.66 to $1.80 per $100 of assessed valuation. Voters overwhelmingly said no to that proposal. A total of 4,521 votes were cast against the budget’s passage, while only 744 voters cast their ballots in favor of the spending plan.
The budget will now be sent to the Township Committee, which may recommend cuts to the spending plan, or leave the budget as the board proposed it.
Superintendent of Schools Ernest Cannava did not return calls requesting a comment on why the budget’s loss was so pronounced this year as opposed to last year, or what, if anything, the committee members could trim from the defeated budget when they begin work to reduce it.
However, the budget was something some of the candidates in the school board election were only too willing to discuss.
"People are frustrated," said Irene Miccio, an incumbent who was returned to her seat on the board. The irony of that date did not escape her.
"The school budget is the only one [the people] have the right to say yes or no to," she said. "Not their income tax, not the township budget, but they can vote on the school budget. I understand that. As a board member, I don’t want anyone to think I don’t care about the general population of the town, but my first priority is the school children, and then the taxpayers. Now the hard work begins to find where cuts can be made to the budget without hurting education."
Defeated candidate Donald Berkman also weighed in on the debate over the budget and its 14-cent tax increase.
"It’s pretty strange that the budget went down because taxes are out of control, yet the incumbents were returned to office," he said. "In Jackson, they voted logically. They wanted change, so they voted out the incumbents."
Lakewood voters returned both Miccio and Meir Grunhut, the current board president, to another three-year term, while electing newcomer Bruce A. Stern instead of Berkman, a former board member who served in 1992 and 1993.
In Jackson, voters swept four incumbents out of office, while also defeating the school budget, which proposed a 17.5-cent tax rate increase.
Berkman did not see any prospect that the Township Committee would succeed in lowering taxpayers’ obligations by cutting the defeated school budget.
"I don’t think [the committee] is going to cut the budget five cents," said Berkman. "The committee [members are] on record as saying they don’t want to harm the children."
During his campaign, Berkman had said that he could reduce the proposed budget by at least $6 million, a claim that Grunhut disputed in a subsequent interview.
When told of Grunhut’s comments, Berkman said, "He’s a genius; he got elected, I didn’t."
— Joyce Blay