With a Vote of 8-1, School Elections to Remain in April

Hillsborough Township’s school election will be held in April this year, after the voted Monday night against a motion moving it to November.

The motion fell 8-1, with board member Chris Pulsifer casting the only vote in favor of the move.

“This is a long time coming, and it’s about time,” Pulsifer said. “I have never understood what was special about the school board budget that mandated that we ought to have a public vote. As members of the public, we don’t vote on any other budget—our township, our county, our state, our country—all of which impact our taxes.

“I don’t get to vote on the federal budget, but I pay income tax,” he added. “...I don’t see why the school board budget should be any different than any other budget that impacts our taxes.”

A . However, as a condition of moving the elections, school district budgets would no longer undergo a public vote providing the budgets were under the cap.

Any of three groups can opt to change the election time: a municipality’s school board, township council or local voters via a petition.

But the concerns about preserving the budget vote remained for many members, while the new concerns include the procedures involved with moving the vote.

“I don’t understand why we can’t sit back for a year and see how the implementation progress happens in other districts,” Jennifer Haley said. “...Things look really nice and neat on paper, but when you try to implement the plan, it doesn’t always happen.

"What I would like to see is an amendment,” she added. “If we’re going to say 2 percent cap, it needs to be a hard 2 percent cap.”

As board member Judy Haas noted, the legislation does not specify a cap amount—and could cause problems if the current 2 percent cap is reduced.

“One of my fears about this legislation is that school districts, and a whole bunch of them did jump on the bandwagon, is that the cap could be turned to zero,” Haas said. “...As far as I’m concerned, I would not agree to anything on the basis of no amount of cap described in the legislation.”

The driving force for one board member was keeping the elections non-political, a practice that many become complicated if the vote moved to November. This year election will include presidential, congressional, assembly, and township committee candidates.

“I believe that the election of the right candidates is far more important than any singular budget,” Marc Rosenberg said. “I fear the politicization of this body should this election move to November. We’re supposed to be non-political. We’re supposed to be non-aligned. I don’t know how we would continue that in November. ... Whether we try to or not, we’ll get sucked into it.”

Meanwhile, other board members felt the budget should maintain its status as a voter-approved measure.

“I don’t support taking away the voters ability to vote on the budget,” Thomas Kinst said. “I do see the incongruity in the other levels of government, but, instead of taking away the voter’s ability to vote on this one to make it equal, I’d like to see it go the other way.

But holding the election in April rather than November could mean an increase in the cost to run it, according to Business Administrator Aiman Mahmoud. Since the election cost is based on records from all school districts, the costs increase when districts opt to move to November.

“We don’t know a definitive cost because we don’t know which districts are going to opt to move this election,” Mahmoud said. “However, the estimates we got from the county clerk is about 15 percent, which is about $5,000 or $6,000 more than what we’re currently paying.”

The district spends between $17,000 and $18,000 on a school board election, Mahmoud said.

While the election will remain in April this year, the board can consider moving it at another time—after, as some board members suggested, observing other districts implement the change and receiving public input.