A call to end voting on school budgets

TRENTON - Public votes on school budgets should be eliminated and April school board elections moved to November, Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts Jr. said yesterday.

Tuesday's school election drew 14 percent of voters, and no school election in the last 25 years has topped 20 percent turnout.

"It's time for New Jersey to wake up to the reality that the April school elections are a poor way to decide the direction of public education," said Roberts (D., Camden).

New Jersey is the only state where voters in most districts can give direct approval to their entire school property tax bill. The typical homeowner in the state pays about $6,800 a year in property taxes, the highest average in the nation. Schools get the largest share of that.

Roberts said the votes should be eliminated except on spending that would exceed a mandated cap.

He said the moves would lower election-administration costs and attract more voters.

"If we want to make school board elections meaningful, they should be rescheduled for November, when voters are most engaged," Roberts said. "If you want to have real accountability, you have to start with real elections."

He said he planned to introduce legislation before the end of June to make the change. The Senate and Gov. Corzine would have to approve it.

The state's largest teachers union, the New Jersey Education Association, said it would support eliminating votes on budgets, but opposes moving school board elections.

"We would like to see partisan politics kept as much as possible out of the school board elections," an NJEA spokesman said.

About 75 percent of school budgets were approved by voters on Tuesday.