Assembly Passes Bill to Move Board Elections

Assembly Passes Bill to Move Board Elections

A bill that would move school board member elections to November passed the state Assembly on Monday by a vote of 43 to 31, with five abstentions. The bill, A-15, was sponsored by Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts, as well as Assemblymen David Wolfe, Jerry Green, Wayne DeAngelo and Paul Moriarty. A-15 also eliminates a vote on school budgets that are below the state’s spending caps.

While NJSBA supports elimination of the budget vote, it opposes A-15 on the grounds that moving the board member election date would have the unintended impact of magnifying party influence over the elections.

“The intention of current state law is clear: Educational issues at the local level should be debated strictly on their merits, without political party influence,” said Marie S. Bilik, NJSBA executive director. “That’s why local school board candidates appear on the ballot without party affiliation and why they stand for election in the spring. Moving board member elections to November would subject the selection of local board members and local educational issues to divisive partisan politics.”

As an alternative to a November election for board members, NJSBA proposed a single non-partisan spring election for school board members, fire district commissioners and officials of the 87 municipalities that have non-partisan governments.

Over-cap Questions Another provision of A-15 would place over-cap spending proposals before voters in November. NJSBA believes that voters should continue to act on proposals to spend above a district’s budget cap, but in the spring – not in November. Placing such questions on the November General Election ballot would be problematic, according to Bilik.

“Over-cap questions should be placed before voters in the spring, before local tax rates are struck, rather than adopted through the overly complicated process outlined in Assembly Bill 15,” she said.

Senate Bill Counterpart The issue now moves to the Senate, where education committee chair Shirley Turner has introduced S-1861, the Senate counterpart to A-15. S-1861 awaits a hearing in the Senate Education Committee. The next Senate Education Committee hearing will take place June 5 at 10 a.m.; no agenda has been posted.

NJSBA will continue to lead opposition to this measure. Members should be alert for e-mails and telephone messages from the Association on how to best reach out to local legislators to express opposition. A good resource Is NJSBA's “talking points” memo; it summarizes the problems associated with this proposed legislation.