NJ Education Report

NJ Spotlight is tweeting that Gov. Christie may not sign A 4394, the bill that gives school boards/local residents the right to move school board member elections to November and bypass an April budget vote as long as the budget increase is within the 2% cap.

That’s not a total surprise: Gov. Christie’s desideratum was a bill that moved all school board member elections to November, not just the ones where the boards were afraid that their budgets would fail to pass muster with voters. The current bill on the Governor’s desk makes the requisite genuflection towards local control, but will most likely result in cash-strapped towns — where budgets often fail to pass — moving elections to November, while more monied towns say, “thanks, but no thanks.” Not exactly the direction that Gov. Christie and Comm. Cerf, all hot under the collar for equity, foresaw.