There’s less than a week to go before the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District’s $27.5 million referendum and significant opposition has not materialized.##M:[more]##
But a handful of residents in West Windsor’s Village Grande development have made it known that they are no fans of the school district’s $27.5 million question, and they want to be heard.
“I believe that passage of the school referendum as presented will not only ultimately raise taxes in West Windsor, but comes at a time when our state is facing hard questions about why the property taxes in New Jersey are higher than any place in the United States,” says Freddi Silverman Myers of Blanketflower Lane.
She asserts that the school district “has almost paid off debts related to past financing and we are being asked again to finance large debts for the most part, what I and others I have spoken with consider to be a cosmetic referendum. Artificial turf, new bubbles for our swimming pool, and extra offices are not absolutely needed for the health, safety, and quality of education of our students.”
“There’s very little that’s cosmetic in the referendum,” responds Diane Hasling, a co-chair of the Citizens Referendum Team — a group formed by residents committed to see the referendum approved. “The referendum plans address real problems at the schools.”
“I’m not sure how anyone can characterize the proposed work as cosmetic,” says Tony Fleres, also a co-chair of the Citizens Referendum team. “Of the $25 million in the base question, about $6 million will be spent on ventilation and classroom renovations at the three oldest buildings in the district. In addition, Dutch Neck will be getting six new classrooms.”
He adds that most of the $19 million proposed for High School South would go towards a new gymnasium and auditorium, “both of which are sorely needed to ease an overcrowding situation.”
“The new pool enclosure — the ‘bubble,’ which will need to be replaced in the next two or three years in any case, is an approximately $200,”000 to $300,”000 item, or about 1 percent of the total referendum cost,” says Fleres.
If the referendum is not approved, he says, the bubble replacement will have to be included in the annual budget, displacing another capital improvement.
Silverman also questions how the construction projects will be administered. “Who has the expertise to track so many projects, and deal with contractors, bids and costs? What happens if we are told that the amounts set aside are not enough? This is an accident waiting to happen.”
According to Hasling, the Board of Education is currently discussing the issue of administration of the projects, and will make a decision once they know whether the referendum is approved. She also points out that, as one of the fastest-growing districts in the state since the 1980s, West Windsor-Plainsboro has been no stranger to building new schools and renovating existing ones.
“I suspect they will retain an architectural or engineering firm to provide construction management services during the construction phase of the work,” says Fleres. “This is typical of how school construction is handled throughout the state. I should also point out that over the last 10 years, the district has constructed and opened four completely new school buildings — High School North, Village School, Grover Middle School, and Town Center Elementary — without any significant issues that I’m aware of. So the district has a good track record for managing a large amount of construction work.”
Ed Gardiner of Cardinalflower Lane says that the school district is using the fact that the bonds for construction of the Community Middle School and Millstone River Elementary School are being paid off this year to spend more money.
“They’re taking advantage of the situation to extend bonding over additional years that I don’t think is necessary,” Gardiner says. “Education is a great thing, but it reaches a point where these educators go overboard. A little fiscal restraint would be good.”
Gardiner signals out the artificial turf fields proposed for both high schools as one excessive expense. “That’s what happens when you put people who have worked in education on the school board. They become indoctrinated over the years to spending money, and it just becomes routine to them.”
Fleres responds that the turf fields are a separate question from the base improvements and are voted on separately from the base question. “The synthetic turf will allow better utilization of the fields at both high schools, allowing more time on each field, for both instructional classes and the teams, than would be possible with natural grass. This in effect increases the capacity of the fields while providing what we believe is a superior playing surface.”
Hasling argues that if the district wanted to show no financial restraint, it could have inflated the referendum with projects at all schools. “If we really wanted to improve the chances for the referendum to pass it would have been pork barreled. The school district would have put something in for all 10 schools.”
“As with any organization, whether it’s a school district, a municipality, a private corporation, or even a family, a balance must be struck between needs, desires, and available resources,” says Fleres. “In establishing the scope of the work to be included in the referendum the district at first came up with more than $35 million worth of items. They balanced that against the goal of not increasing the cost of debt service to the taxpayers, cutting the scope of the referendum down to its current size, and eliminating projects that were considered not necessary or small enough to be included in the annual capital budgets. In my opinion this shows considerable fiscal restraint.”
Fleres also points out that the district is limited by state law to about $1 million of capital work in annual school budgets. The district is also prohibited from putting money each year into a building fund that could pay for future projects. “For the most part, this means any sizable construction project must be voted on separately through a referendum process.”
Martin Mosho of Cardinalflower Lane questions the legality of the vote because the school district scheduled the referendum at a time when many senior citizens are out of state.
“It’s illegitimate, immoral, and unethical. This (vote) was scheduled for a time when substantial number of constituents are out of town. Large numbers of people over 60 years old are away,” he says, pointing out that the older demographic traditionally votes against school budgets and referendums. “Why not schedule the referendum for the latter part of April when more people are at home? This is like scheduling an election on Christmas Eve or Hanukkah.”
Hasling says there was no grand conspiracy to try to keep people from voting, but that the dates a referendum can be held are dictated by state law. The plans for the referendum were submitted to the state in June for approval, and regulations require a six-month lead time between the submission of the plans and the referendum date.
The fact that the state only allows school special elections to be held on the fourth Tuesday in January, the second Tuesday in March, the last Tuesday in September, or the second Tuesday in December meant that January 24 was the earliest a referendum could be held.
Hasling also points out that if the referendum is approved, the January date will allow the district to take advantage of this year’s spring and summer construction season to start work. A referendum held later in the year would have likely precluded work from happening until 2007.
She adds that there was so effort to disenfranchise voters. “We tried to work very hard to inform seniors, knowing that they may be away, of the laws that makes it easier to vote by absentee ballots. We were also very active in distributing absentee ballots. We’ve been trying to be extremely open with this plan and process.”
“The school board wanted to get the work approved as quickly as possible to have a better chance of state funding if it becomes available and to be ready to take advantage of this summer for construction,” says Fleres.
Despite all the arguments in favor of the referendum, opponents point to one cold hard fact. “The taxes in this town are not getting any better,” says Mosho. “How much do they think a taxpayer can afford to spend. The issue should not be how much money they can squeeze out of seniors and everyone else, but how much they can get out of Trenton. We shouldn’t be fighting with each other. They should be chasing after Trenton for more money.”
