Next year’s school board member elections would take place in November and votes on base budgets would be eliminated under a bill approved by the Senate Education Committee last Thursday.

S-1546 (Turner) would move the election of school board members to the November General Election. Elected school board members would take office the following January. The names of candidates for the school board would appear separately from candidates running for other offices.

Budget Vote Finish The bill also would eliminate budget votes for school districts with proposed budgets at or below the state’s spending growth limitation, or cap. School districts could submit questions to voters at the November election to authorize over-cap expenditures.

The bill would go into effect for the 2007 school elections. Current school board members’ terms would be extended by eight months to coincide with the new election calendar.

S-1546 passed the Senate Education Committee by a vote of 3-1. It now goes to the full Senate.

Partisanship Concerns “NJSBA supports eliminating a public vote on school budgets when they are at or below the state-mandated cap,” said the Association’s chief lobbyist, Michael Vrancik, in comments to the committee.

“We also support the intent of the bill to increase voter turnout,” he noted. “However, moving the school elections to November would sacrifice the non-partisan nature of school board elections and cause school board members to compete with higher-level candidates during the busiest campaign season of the year, perhaps requiring them to raise more money to gain the public’s attention.