Council Beats BOE to Election Vote; Tinton Falls Moves to November

Although the Borough Council voted Tuesday night at its meeting to move school elections to November, the resolution was not supported by one member who said he felt the decision should be made by the .

"I'm uncomfortable," said Steven Schertz, a council member who has served two terms on the school board, before the vote. "I feel we are ramming this decision down the school board."

The borough should support the school board's decision, said Schertz, not impose it. All other members of the borough council voted in favor of the move.

Municipalities have until Feb. 17 to decide whether to move elections to November and eliminate the annual vote on the school budget, provided it stays within a two-percent cap. The law was signed by the governor on Jan. 17.

There are three routes towards moving the elections:

• Approval by the board of education;
• Approval by the governing municipal body;
• Petition by voters.

Council President Gary Baldwin said it was the looming deadline that was the catalyst for the vote.

"We didn't want to jump out ahead of the school board," he said. "We would have preferred them to do it first."

But Board of Education President Peter Karavites said on Thursday that the mayor "never reached out" to discuss any issues or problems the board might have had with the move.

"We had a lot of questions," Karavites told Patch. "What was his rush?"

The board had questions about how funding for the November elections would be split between the school district and municipality and also how the timing would change for preparing the annual budget, said Karavites.

The mayor wrote in a Jan. 20 e-mail that moving the elections would result in a cost savings for taxpayers and increased voter turnout.

The TFBOE will meet Feb. 13 and according Karavites, its members will more than likely support the move to November.

"The issue isn't the vote," Karavites told Patch, "it was the procedure."

According to Karavites, the council's resolution is not valid without the support of Shrewsbury Township because the school district is regional and each sending district must agree to move the election.

"They passed a resolution that is incorrect," he said.