District Reacts to Election Date Change

Administrators and members of the reacted with a mixture of disappointment and indifference after learning school elections are moving to November.

The Council voted to from April 16 to Nov. 6 Tuesday night, overruling the school board's earlier decision to keep the election in April.

State law allows for the date to be moved by either the school board, the municipal governing body or by referendum.

"They have every right to do that," Superintendent Joseph Lupo said.

Lupo said no one from the Council had contacted him about the decision. 

The move puts Paramus among the majority of school districts who have eliminated the April school election. By the count of the New Jersey School Boards Association, 342 out of 538 school districts had moved the vote to November.

The deadline to move the election is Friday.

Councilman Joseph Lagana, who spurred the Council's vote to move the election to November, said moving the race to April would the district save at least part of the $30,000 cost of holding the election and eliminate the cost to the Borough Clerk of paying $200 apiece for voting machines. He added the move would increase turnout.

"I think it's fair to say that moving it to November will be a net savings to the district," said Steven Cea, business administrator for the district.

Holding the school election in November would also eliminate the need for a public vote on the district budget. Residents will only get to vote on the budget if it increases the tax levy by more than 2 percent.

It's unclear though how the budget would go up for vote in November when the school fiscal year starts July 1, said Steven Cea, business administrator for the district. The district must still hold public budget hearings.

Lupo said Paramus has usually supported the budget anyway.

"It's nice not to have to go through the angst of a budget election but I think we've been very faithful to the community in terms of making sure what was asked for was needed, and I think the community has responded with only three rejections in 50-some-odd years," he said.

The timing of the election affects when Board of Education members will take office. Newly elected trustees usually took office soon after being elected in April.

With a November election, new board members will start in January.

Trustees Joanne Bergmann and Sheila Criscione criticized the Council's decision, arguing moving the election to November and having school board candidates appear on the same ballot as partisan candidates would politicize the election. School hopefuls would be hard pressed to match the money spent by party-backed candidates on things like flyers and lawn signs, Bergmann said.

"You're talking about something that should be child-centered and purely child-centered," Bergmann said. "And that's what we're losing here."

Bergmann and Criscione said they wished that someone from the Council had let them know before the vote.

"I would have went down and just indicated the Board's philosophy as to why we didn't want to move it," Criscione said.

Board president Tony Feorenzo will be part of the first batch of school board candidates on the November ballot. He said he won't be affiliated with any party while running for re-election, and doesn't believe the school board is in danger of becoming politicized.

"We're all individual-minded and we do not vote Republican or Democrat," he said. "We vote individually for what we think is the best interest of these students."