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School Board Delegates Oppose Supermajority Vote Requirement

TRENTON, May 19, 2008 — The state’s association of local school boards on Saturday called for the repeal of a recent law that requires an unprecedented 60-percent supermajority voter approval for additional school-spending ballot questions.

Approximately 140 school board members attended the New Jersey School Boards Association’s semi-annual Delegate Assembly in Plainsboro. The Association’s policy-setting body approved a resolution from the Ramsey Board of Education in Bergen County that opposes the recent state requirement that 60 percent of participating voters approve school ballot proposals to spend above a district’s maximum permitted tax increase.

“This requirement violates all principles of majority rule and gives those persons who vote in the negative greater voice and control in their respective communities,” reads the Ramsey proposal, which characterized its proposal as restoring the principle of “one person, one vote.”

In New Jersey, no other ballot question requires a supermajority vote—not even a change to the state constitution.

In April, voters in most New Jersey communities decide whether to support or reject the local district’s proposed budget. The growth of school budgets is capped by the state. A school board may propose programs or services to exceed the state’s cap by adding a “second question” to the ballot that describes the requested program or service—and voters decide whether to fund it. Second questions typically address proposals such as expansion of kindergarten, retention of staff, school security, enrichment and extracurricular programs.

A state law enacted in April 2007, which capped the growth of local tax-levy increases at 4 percent, also required that 60 percent of voters approve a school district’s second ballot proposal to exceed that levy cap. The new law gives greater weight to votes against school programs than to votes for school programs.”

In the April 2008 Annual School Election, only four of 33 proposed second questions received the required supermajority. If a simple majority had been required, 11 other questions would have been approved.

Based on today’s vote by its delegates, NJSBA will seek and support changes in law to remove the super-majority approval requirement on second questions. Decisions made by NJSBA’s Delegate Assembly define what the Association will fight for, or against, in the state Legislature and the courts.

In other action, the delegates approved a resolution, also from the Ramsey school board, that urges school districts on election days to provide lessons on “civic responsibility and the importance of exercising those hard-earned rights.” The delegates also rejected the recommendations of the Final Report of the Ad Hoc Committee to Study the Delegate Assembly.

The New Jersey School Boards Association, a federation of district boards of education, advocates the interests of school districts, trains local school board members, and provides resources for the advancement of public education.