4-21-10 News on School Election Results
'N.J. voters reject school budgets in heated elections' -Star-Ledger
"New Jersey voters took a stand on school spending and property taxes Tuesday, rejecting 260 of 479 school budgets across 19 counties, according to unofficial results in statewide school elections..."
The Record 'Bergen passes majority of school budgets, while Passaic voters reject most'
"Voters approved school budgets in 55 of 74 Bergen County towns Tuesday, ignoring Governor Christie’s call to reject spending plans in districts where teachers refused to take a wage freeze...Bergen voters appeared to buck the state trend."
Philadelphia Inquirer- 'Most school budgets fail in S. Jersey'
"Rejections far outnumbered approvals in yesterday's voting on school budgets in Camden, Burlington and Gloucester Counties, according to available results.
Voting yes were Haddonfield and Gloucester Township in Camden County; Bass River, Easthampton, Morristown, Riverton and Woodland in Burlington County; and Deptford, Glassboro, Greenwich Township, Logan, Paulsboro, Washington Township and Woodbury Heights in Gloucester County..."
Asbury Park Press 'NJ voters in 'no' mood for school tax hikes...30% of budgets pass in Monmouth, 39% in Ocean'
My Central New Jersey 'Passions, turnout high as school spending plans rejected in Central Jersey'
EAST BRUNSWICK — "If school districts in Central
Jersey were to receive a collective report card
yesterday, after asking voters to approve their
budgets, the grade would have been a C-minus..."
N.J. voters reject school budgets in heated elections
April 21, 2010, 12:25AM
New Jersey voters took a stand on school spending and property taxes Tuesday, rejecting 260 of 479 school budgets across 19 counties, according to unofficial results in statewide school elections.
In the proposed state budget he unveiled last month, Gov. Chris Christie slashed $820 million in aid to school districts and urged voters to defeat budgets if teachers in their schools did not agree to one-year wage freezes. The salvo ignited a heated debate with the state’s largest teachers union.
Christie said the cuts were necessary to help plug an $11 billion state budget gap.
More election results :
• Morris County
• Essex County
• Somerset County
• Union County
• Middlesex County
• Hunterdon County
• Gloucester County
• Cumberland County
• Salem County
• Mercer County
In many districts Tuesday, the governor made himself heard as 54 percent of the spending plans were rejected, according to unofficial returns. If the trend continues, it would mark the most budget defeats in New Jersey since 1976, when 56 percent failed. Typically, voters approve more than 70 percent of the school budgets.
Key districts where budgets failed yesterday included Edison, Parsippany, Bridgewater-Raritan and Woodbridge. Budgets passed in Mountain Lakes, Piscataway, Livingston and Jersey City.
In wealthy Somerset County, voters defeated 15 of 17 spending plans; in Hunterdon County, 23 of 28 budgets failed. In the governor’s hometown, Mendham Township, the budget was narrowly approved.
Jeffrey Brookner, president of the Bridgewater-Raritan school board, said "lots of factors played into the defeat. One of those factors is the role that the governor played."
Voter turnout was also high in elections that typically draw little interest. In Sparta, where turnout rivaled some presidential elections, the budget was defeated by roughly a 3-to-1 margin. Sparta teachers agreed to a one-year wage freeze late last week, but the budget still called for a nearly 10 percent tax increase for residents in the Sussex County community.
"I think the governor’s rhetoric hurt us. The governor dumping all of the state issues on the local level hurt us," Superintendent Thomas Morton said. "It’s going to be a long, hard road. We’ll start to work tomorrow."
In towns where they failed, the budgets will now be presented to the local governing body, which can cut or leave the spending plans as is.
Sparta Mayor Scott Seelagy said he wanted to analyze the budget before commenting on where the council would look for cuts.
"The voters in Sparta have sent a very strong message about how they feel about taxes," said Seelagy, who said he couldn’t recall the last time a Sparta school budget had failed. "I think people voted with their pocketbooks."
In North Brunswick, where the teachers union also agreed last week to a one-year wage freeze, the budget passed.
"The cooperation, I think that was the difference," Superintendent Brian Zychowski said. "People recognized that everybody was trying to contribute to maintain the educational integrity of the school district."
School elections in New Jersey are usually a low-key event, with voter turnout typically around 15 percent.
This year was different, with weeks of harsh rhetoric and a bare-knuckles political battle between the governor and the 200,000-member New Jersey Education Association leading up to the vote.
When it came time to cast ballots, residents like Dru Patel of Parsippany sided with Christie.
Patel, 45, who voted at Lake Hiawatha School, said he turned down the district’s $127 million budget because "there was nothing like a salary freeze ... in these tough times.
Previous coverage:
• N.J. school elections Q&A: What happens when school budgets fail
• N.J. voters cast ballots on school budgets amid Gov. Chris Christie's budget cuts
• Gov. Chris Christie calls N.J. students union 'pawns' in teacher layoff protests
• Bergen County teachers union chief seeks to survive after 'prayer' memo
• N.J. teachers unions in 17 of 590 districts agree to wage freezes so far
• N.J. teachers union is skeptical of Gov. Christie's letters on wage freeze
• Complete coverage of the 2010 New Jersey State Budget
"At our work place, we have had a salary freeze for two years, and the budget and property taxes keep going up," said Patel, a research scientist at a chemical company.
Don Wheeler, of Linden, voted against his district’s $102 million budget, which included $78 million to be raised in taxes. The budget failed.
"There is such a thing as belt-tightening and if the educators don’t recognize it, they’re going to," Wheeler said.
Not everyone felt that way.
Anthony Cordasco, 38, of Parsippany, said he voted for the budget to preserve the quality of the schools. "I think our governor was irresponsible in his comment urging people to vote no. Individual communities should take their own local needs into consideration," Cordasco said.
Clem Gibeault of Roselle Park, a former school board president, said he voted for his district’s $29.2 budget, which would still mean the loss of 58 jobs. The budget failed by two votes, but election officials are going to tabulate provisional ballots today.
"The school system is the only thing they’ve got in Roselle Park, and you’ve got to support it," Gibeault said.
Districts were sent reeling by the cuts Christie proposed, which slashed aid to each district by an amount equal to 5 percent of their overall budgets, but resulted in eliminating 40-, 50- or even 100 percent of many districts’ state aid. School boards proposed laying off teachers, slashing programs and increasing class sizes.
Most also planned to raise property taxes: About 83 percent of districts sought property tax hikes, according to a survey by the New Jersey School Boards Association.
The rhetoric grew heated. The governor wanted the head of the Bergen County union to resign after the affiliate sent out a memo with a joke alluding to Christie’s death. On the eve of the election, Christie accused some union members of using children as "drug mules" to find out whether their parents planned to vote.
Tuesday, NJEA President Barbara Keshishian demanded an apology.
Christie cast his own ballot Tuesday morning in Mendham Township and declined to say how he voted. "I’m going to vote my conscience," Christie said. "It’s my business."
Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said in an email the governor would not comment last night on the results.
The NJEA’s communications director did not immediately return a phone call late last night.
By Jeanette Rundquist and Kristen Alloway/The Star-Ledger
Staff writers Victoria St. Martin and Rohan Mascarenhas, and New Jersey Local News Service reporters Eliot Caroom, Eugene Paik, Dan Goldberg and Halley Bondy contributed to this report
Bergen passes majority of school budgets, while Passaic voters reject most
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Last updated: Wednesday April 21, 2010, 9:00 AM
BY LESLIE BRODY AND PATRICIA ALEX
The Record
STAFF WRITERS
Voters approved school budgets in 55 of 74 Bergen County towns Tuesday, ignoring Governor Christie’s call to reject spending plans in districts where teachers refused to take a wage freeze.
Bergen voters appeared to buck the state trend. According to unofficial results, voters turned down 260 of 479 budgets in 19 counties Tuesday night — a rejection rate of 54 percent. Budgets were on the ballots in a total of 537 districts across the state’s 21 counties.
The rate of defeat statewide eclipses the 27 percent failure rate in recent years, and represents the first time voters have rejected a majority of school budgets in 34 years.
In Passaic County, most budgets went down, though one more passed than last year. Six budgets passed in Passaic County and 12 were defeated.
Tuesday’s vote came after one of the most emotionally charged school election seasons in memory; despite property tax increases, most local budgets will still require cuts in staff and programs due to steep declines in state aid.
Steve Wollmer, spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association, expressed concern about early reports that significantly more budgets had been defeated than usual.
“Everyone knew it was going to be a tough election,” Wollmer said Tuesday night. “People are just not happy on a lot of levels, and the governor hasn’t helped with his grandstanding and bully pulpit.”
In recent weeks, Christie attacked the NJEA on an almost daily basis and demanded that already-negotiated contracts be reopened to freeze salaries. Teachers in most school districts did not concede, while Christie called teacher pay and benefits beyond the reach of recession-weary taxpayers.
In Bergen, only one more district’s spending plan failed than last year, and budgets went down in hotly contested districts, such as Teaneck, Ridgewood and Rochelle Park.
“Considering the fiscal environment we’re in, I think the school boards, administrations and citizens really looked carefully at the needs of the districts, and overall I think it’s a favorable outcome,” said Aaron Graham, executive county superintendent of schools in Bergen.
In Passaic County, Clifton’s and most upcounty budgets were defeated. Budgets passed in Little Falls, Wayne and the city of Passaic.
The governor signaled Tuesday that the votes would not be the end to his standoff with the NJEA. The administration is still pushing for teachers to take wage freezes and is expected to put forth new measures shortly to rein in public employee pensions.
“These are generally very low turnout elections. We’ll see what happens,” said Christie. “But at the end it’s not going to change the overall dynamic. Because the overall dynamic is that people in this state are fed up with being overtaxed, fed up with the addiction to spending that government has had, and they’ve hired me to change it.”
David Verducci, superintendent in Glen Rock, said he was “elated” by the almost 2-1 ratio by which the budget passed. Glen Rock is one of two districts in Bergen County where teachers accepted a one-year pay freeze. “People understand this election was more than just about the budget,” he said. “This election in Glen Rock was about support for public schools, about people working together for the common good. I’m overwhelmed.”
In Rochelle Park, however, officials were sorely disappointed. Voters rejected a budget that would have boosted the tax levy 8 percent. Superintendent Fredrik Oberkehr said the vote “was more about politics than education. I’m talking about the banter going back and forth between the governor’s office and the NJEA. None of those conversations in my mind had anything to do with educating kids.”
The budgets presented to voters already called for hundreds of layoffs in Bergen and more than 1,200 in schools in Passaic County, along with many program eliminations. The defeated spending plans now go to the municipal governing bodies, which can decide to make more drastic cuts in light of voter dissatisfaction.
Parents in many districts prodded neighbors with e-mails, text messages and robo-calls Tuesday urging them to vote. School elections typically draw only about 14 percent of voters.
Some at the polls said they wanted to save teachers’ jobs and programs, while others said they felt too squeezed by property taxes to approve bigger local outlays for schools.
In Upper Saddle River, resident Sam Hochberger voted against the budget, saying the governor was on the right track in trying to cut spending. “He’s putting his neck on the line,” Hochberger said. “We need fiscal responsibility, and that’s what he’s trying to do.”
Some voters said Christie’s attack against teachers was unfair.
“I don’t see him taking a pay cut,” said Kathy Bove, after voting at Clifton High School. “If there’s going to be cuts in government service, it should be across the board.”
Elaine Minervini of Westwood said that as much as she wanted to support education, she had no choice but to vote against the budget.
“I’m all taxed out,” she said. “It’s enough. It comes out of every pocket and corner. We need to make smarter choices.”
A majority of local budgets have passed each year since 1977, when state income tax began to help pay for local schools and relieved some of the burden on property taxpayers.
Christie cut direct state aid to schools for the upcoming year that begins in July by nearly $820 million; in most cases, the cut amounted to 5 percent of districts’ budgets.
That step brought howls of protest from educators who charged the cuts would jeopardize the quality of education. The aid cuts came on top of Christie’s announcement in February that he was freezing $475 million promised to districts for the rest of this fiscal year.
Christie followed those two rounds of cuts by declaring that voters should reject budgets if teachers refused to share in the sacrifice by taking a one-year pay freeze. Teachers in only two North Jersey districts — Midland Park and Glen Rock — agreed to give up raises for 2010-11, but teachers in several other districts made smaller concessions.
Statewide, teachers in 13 of roughly 600 districts took wage freezes, while administrators in about 125 did so, according to the Education Department.
This report contains information from the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, the NJEA poured its formidable energy into mustering its more than 200,000 members to get out the vote to support the budgets.
The New Jersey School Boards Association also urged voters to back their districts. Executive Director Marie S. Bilik said, “School boards have done the best job possible with the hand they’ve been dealt.”
The Star-Ledger contributed to this article. E-mail: brody@northjersey.com and alex@northjersey.com
NJ voters in 'no' mood for school tax hikes
30% of budgets pass in Monmouth, 39% in Ocean
By BOB JORDAN and ERIK LARSEN • STAFF WRITERS • April 20, 2010
Philadelphia Inquirer- Most school budgets fail in S. Jersey
By Peter Mucha
Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer
Rejections far outnumbered approvals in yesterday's voting on school budgets in Camden, Burlington and Gloucester Counties, according to available results.
Voting yes were Haddonfield and Gloucester Township in Camden County; Bass River, Easthampton, Morristown, Riverton and Woodland in Burlington County; and Deptford, Glassboro, Greenwich Township, Logan, Paulsboro, Washington Township and Woodbury Heights in Gloucester County.
That list of is likely incomplete, because results for many Camden County districts were unavailable early this morning.
Among the dozens of school districts voting no were Pennsauken and Cherry Hill in Camden County; Burlington Township, Cinnaminson, Delran, Evesham, Maple Shade, Medford, Mount Laurel and Willingboro in Burlington County; and Gateway Regional, Monroe Township, Pitman, West Deptford and Woodbury in Gloucester County.
Where the budgets were defeated, town and city councils will determine what funds will go to local schools.
For more details, see links to listings at right.
My Central New Jersey - 'Passions, turnout high as school spending plans
rejected in Central Jersey'
By RICK MALWITZ • STAFF WRITER • April 20,
2010
EAST BRUNSWICK — If school districts in Central
Jersey were to receive a collective report card
yesterday, after asking voters to approve their
budgets, the grade would have been a C-minus.
For a district-by-district look at the votes, visit
our Politics page.
Nine budgets were passed, but 16 were rejected, in
the most contentious school board elections in a
generation, following major cuts in state aid to
education by Gov. Chris Christie, and belt-
tightening cuts throughout the state.
Budgets were approved by voters in Metuchen,
Highland Park, North Brunswick, Cranbury, South
River, Piscatwawy, South Brunswick, West Windsor-
Plainsboro and Rahway.
Budgets were rejected in Middlesex Borough,
Dunellen, Monroe, East Brunswick, Perth Amboy,
Sayreville, Milltown, Jamesburg, Old Bridge,
Franklin, Edison, Linden, South Amboy, South
Plainfield, Woodbridge and the Spotswood-Helmetta
district.
The budget vote in Carteret was still not clear, as the
borough clerk reported the spending plan had
passed but the mayor said absentee ballots had
resulted in the spending plan's defeat.
The most emphatic "no'' vote was in Edison, where
the budget was rejected by a 7,366-4,568 margin.
The narrowest defeat was in Franklin, where the
budget lost by 34 votes, with a 3,226-3,192
margin.
Results that became available after the newspaper
deadline can be found at www.mycentraljersey.
com/politics.
When voters reject a budget t then is sent to the
municipality's governing board, which has the
authority to order dollar-amount cuts. The school
district can appeal the cuts to the state Department
of Education.
Following a tense war of words between the
governor and the New Jersey Education Association,
the union that represents teachers, the voters had
their chance to pass judgment on the budgets.
The governor asked voters to reject budgets unless
teachers had agreed to a pay freeze. Less than two
dozen teachers unions agreed to a pay freeze,
including two districts in Middlesex County -
Metuchen and North Brunswick.
Among voters at polling places yesterday, passions
were strong - both for and against the budgets.
Mary Walsh voted at the Kendall Park Fire and First
Aid Station in South Brunswick.
"I hope the parents are more involved. We need to
put the pride back in education,'' said Walsh, a
teacher by trade.
"Parents pick the town they live in for the schools.
And people are moving here, so we must be doing
something right,'' Walsh added.
Vinay Manchanda, who also voted in Kendall Park,
said, "The budget issue was the main thing. It is for
the teachers and the kids.''
Marianne Carroll voted "yes'' in South Amboy.
"Right now, seventh and eighth grades in the middle
school don't have any sports whatsoever and now
they want to take theater away from them,'' said
Carroll.
"Any activity that you can do after school is keeping
these kids out of trouble. I want the kids to have
whatever programs they can have,'' said Carroll.
"We need to have some more observation of the
budget and we need to have a little closer look at
keeping teachers salaries in line with everybody
else's in society,'' said Vincent Mackiel, who voted
against the South Amboy budget.
In Linden, Tracey Birch, a mother of three children
who attend elementary School No. 9, said she voted
for the budget.
"I think it's very important we keep teachers in place
or our children are the ones who will suffer. They
(the children) are the leaders of our future,'' Birch
said. "My prayer is that it (the budget) will pass.''
Birch said without voter approval of the budget,
more and more will be taken away from the children.
Her children told her the art program in in jeopardy.
"They are worried about that. Education is important
and extra curricular activities are just as important.
If we keep cutting there will be nothing for them to
participate in,'' Birch said.
"This is my first year voting on a school budget,''
said Ed Dalley, outside Edison High School, after c
asting his vote. "I've had it up to here,'' he said,
pointing to over his head.
Dally said the teachers union is getting out of hand
and has got to be reined in. "It is costing the
taxpayers too much. Everybody is making cuts, why
not them?'' he said.
He voted against the budget.
Annette Colterelli said she and her husband are not
always able to make it to the polls. But this year they
made the time.
"Our taxes are going up,'' said Colterelli, whose
children are no longer in the school system. "I'm
sure there are other cuts you can make to the
budget besides teachers, like principals and
administrators who make all the money,'' she said.
Colterelli also voted no on the budget.
"I came out to vote because I'm tired of high taxes,''
said Annabel Figueiredo who voted at the East
Franklin Firehouse in Somerset.
"I voted against the budget. They're going to
eliminate teacher positions instead of the union t
aking a pay freeze. That really aggravates me.
Everyone is hurting - I have two jobs. But the
teachers are not willing to pitch in.''
"I came out to support the budget even though I
don't have children,'' said Linda Haboush, outside
the East Franklin Firehouse. "I want the children of
America to have a good education.''
"I voted for the budget because our kids need a
good education,'' said 70-year-old Bill Ward. "We're
doing a lousy job when the rest of the world is
turning out scientists. But I believe the teachers and
the union should take a hit like everybody else.''
On the electronic billboard outside Monroe High
School the message was simple: "Please Vote.''
"I teach technology and my job has been cut,'' said
Karen O'Connell of Monroe, as she walked from the
Oak Tree Elementary School, where she teaches. "I've
been on the job for five years, and now this.''
Staff writers Lalita Aloor Amuthan, Mary Ann
Bourbeau, Leo D. Rommel
