The Hunterdon Democrat published the following article on May 30, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

Number of school board candidates plummets in N.J. after election change

By Renée Kiriluk-Hill/Hunterdon Democrat 
on May 30, 2013 at 5:37 PM

A change in school elections intended to increase public participation in New Jersey may be having the opposite effect on candidates, who will decide budgets that largely represent the greatest chunk of property tax bills.

Despite widespread publicity in 2012, the first year of the change, the ratio of candidates to vacant seats was the lowest in 14 years, New Jersey School Boards Association reported.

And, with this year’s filing deadline for school board candidates just five days away, that number could dip further.

In one county yesterday, Hunterdon, nine people had filed a nominating petition for one of 79 seats opening countywide on a Board of Education. Among the county’s four regional high school districts, only two people had declared candidacies for 14 openings.

Mike Yaple, spokesman for School Boards Association, said that the deadline to get on the November ballot is too early, and his group wants it moved closer to the November general election.

When school elections were held in April, candidates faced a February filing deadline.

Now, he said, people must file the paperwork “in the spring, for an election in the fall and they won’t be sworn in until the winter.”

One compelling reason repeated in support of the school election changes was the low voter turn-out rate at the special April elections — 15%, according to School Boards.

The filing deadline instituted last year is aligned with the June primary race. Senator Jim Whelan (D-2) sponsored a bill, introduced on Jun 18, 2012, that would narrow the gap.

It would set the school board candidate filing deadline as 64 days before the general election, instead of five months. The bill remains in the Senate Education Committee.

Were it in effect this year, the filing deadline for school board candidates would be Sept. 3, the day after Labor Day, instead of June 4, eight days after Memorial Day.

People must file the paperwork “in the spring, for an election in the fall and they won’t be sworn in until the winter.”

New Jersey school districts last year were given the option, for the first time in many years, of by-passing voter approval of operating budget levies that remain within the state-set cap. Last year that allowed those tax levies to rise up to 2%.

According to School Boards, last year 468 New Jersey districts took that option and moved voting on school board candidates only to the November general election. Voters decided 1,448 open seats. In Hunterdon, write-in votes decided a scattering of those seats in the fall, including all three open on the Tewksbury Township board.

Yaple said the number this year climbed to 501, leaving 41 districts in the April special election cycle.

In 2012, School Boards reported, an average of 1.25 candidates ran for each school
board vacancy in the November elections, compared to 1.44 candidates-per-seat in the April 2012 elections and 1.38 candidates-per-seat in 2011, before the law changed.

It was the lowest ratio since 1999, it said, and the decrease was more pronounced than that among new candidates, compared to incumbents.

Yaple doesn’t know if the state intended the earlier filing deadline because it falls during the school year.

But, he said, in New Jersey and nationally, school board members tend to be older. “It is unpaid, there are no (health insurance) benefits and it does take a commitment of time,” Yaple said. “It really is community service if you want to do it right. One of the first things we tell a new board member is to get a dedicated filing cabinet” for school board business. Otherwise, “your kitchen table can become overrun pretty quickly.”