RIVER VALE—Voters will head to the polls Nov. 7 to determine whether the school board should appropriate $230,000 and hire three Class III officers, and an alternate officer, to provide armed security at the township’s two elementary schools and middle school.
If voters approve the $230,000 amount, it will be added to each subsequent school year budget to pay for officer salaries and related training and equipment.
However, concerns were voiced by several trustees at an earlier spring meeting that the funding may not be sustainable, or that to continue to fund the officers other instructional programs might need to be trimmed or cut. Some were completely opposed to cutting back instructional or educational programs.
“Approval of these taxes ($230,000) will result in a permanent increase in the district’s tax levy. These proposed additional expenditures are in addition to those necessary to achieve the New Jersey Student Learning Standards adopted by the State Board of Education,” reads the referendum question.
Following a 45-minute discussion, school trustees voted 4-2 on May 2 to approve the referendum question. Opposing the referendum were Jamie Assor and Virginia Senande. Voting in favor were Louan Austin, Patrice Pintarelli, Arthur White and Board President Steven Rosini. Trustee Cheryl Berkowitz was absent.
An archived version of the May meeting can be viewed on YouTube by clicking on the agenda meeting link.
Assor said the timing was “not great” now to put the question before voters, and that she would rather have waited to see if certain board expenses, such as transportation, might decrease in a year or so, as well as possibly find money in next year’s budget to fund the officers.
Senande said she voted no because she did not think the board could afford to fund the officers next year. “So the public commits to doing it, we don’t know that we can stick with it,” she said, adding the decision was “one of the more difficult votes I had to make.”
Austin said that as a parent, she knows that school shootings are real, though she feels local schools are safe. She said trustees must make decisions not only based on budgets, but as parents and community members.
“Who are we to say we’re secure and we’ve done enough? That’s why I feel it’s so important to bring this to the community, inform them of all the information you’re giving us…and then have a voice through a vote,” said Austin.
Business Administrator Kelly Ippolito said that trustees could consider adding the cost of officers to next year’s 2024–2025 budget, as well as use “banked cap” from this year’s health care adjustment, about $340,000, to pay for the officers.
Supt. Melissa Signore said that whatever the referendum outcome, the district “must continue to harden our (school) buildings” and noted school security officers “may or may not protect and do what it is intended to do.” She said the officers could be “another tool” in the “multiple layers” of security being employed by the district.
At one point, Signore suggested a survey be sent to parents to seek their opinion on armed officers in the schools, following discussion of holding a possible public forum. However, school officials said they could not reveal school security details and that a forum might not be helpful for providing information on the referendum.
It was not clear whether a parent survey was done or what district public information or outreach efforts occurred since the May vote.
Efforts to reach school officials for comment this week were not returned by press time. No information or links to the referendum question could be found on the district website.
Editor’s note: Owing to a typographical error, the headline over the print version of this story, Sept. 11, 2023, gave the wrong figure for the proposed appropriation. The correct amount, as the story says, is $230,000.)