Superintendent Joe Meloche said a discussion will take place at Tuesday’s BOE meeting about possibly going out for another referendum and what the questions might look like.
Last Tuesday, a long debate over the Cherry Hill Public Schools bond referendum ended with Cherry Hill voters rejecting all three questions on the ballot.
However, a new discussion of how to proceed forward with the projects included within those questions is about to get started.
According to preliminary results on the bond referendum from the Camden County Board of Elections, the majority of voters voted “no” to all three questions on the ballot. For question one, 5,940 voters chose “no” and 4,785 voters chose “yes.” Passage of the first question would have permitted the district to issue $49,734,143 in bonds to pay for a number of projects, including security upgrades, major infrastructure improvements including roof and HVAC replacements, building envelope upgrades and a new multi-purpose room at Johnson Elementary School.
Since question one failed to pass, questions two and three were automatically defeated. However, the majority of voters chose to reject those questions anyway. For question two, there were 6,419 “no” votes against 4,331 “yes” votes to issue $113,402,251 in bonds for dozens of district-wide projects. In question three, there were 6,520 “no” votes and 4,186 “yes” votes for the issuance of $47,636,213 in bonds for projects such as science lab upgrades, locker room upgrades and district-wide site improvements.
With all three questions being rejected, Cherry Hill residents could see a reduction in their school taxes. A home with the average assessed value would see a $75 decrease in taxes as the district is scheduled to pay off the last of its outstanding debt in early 2019.
However, it’s likely residents will be heading to the polls again to vote in another bond referendum next year. The day after last Tuesday’s special election, Superintendent Joe Meloche said the administration would plan to have a discussion with the board of education at its next meeting about how to proceed forward with setting a date for a new bond referendum. The board’s next meeting is scheduled for Dec. 18.
What a new bond referendum would look like remains to be seen. Meloche believes the district needs to discuss whether to make changes to the questions. If the district chose to not make any changes to the questions or projects, another bond referendum could be held as early as March 12.
“If there’s going to be another election, that’s the (only) date that’s left in this academic year,” Meloche said.
However, Meloche noted if there were modifications to any of the project applications, whether it was the addition, modification or deletion of items, the district would need to re-submit project applications to the state Department of Education. Because of the 90-day window the state receives to review the applications, a special election for a new bond referendum wouldn’t be able to occur until next fall at the earliest.
The failure of the referendum will also have an impact on the district’s budget for the 2019–2020 school year. Meloche said it was too early to talk specifics on how the budget would be impacted, but he said district administrators would need to discuss if some of the more urgent projects included in the bond referendum will need to be included in the general operating budget for next year.
“Our primary focus always goes back to the human resources,” Meloche said, talking about the students and staff in the district. “It will continue to be the primary focus and our primary resource that’s there. But, we have to do it in buildings that are safe and secure for the kids and the staff.”
“Our annual budget can go up 2 percent,” Meloche added. “That’s our cap that’s there and it’s part of the discussions that we have right now with how do we spend our money.”
In the weekend prior to the election, Meloche hosted a number of information sessions across town at places such as the Cherry Hill Public Library, the Katz JCC and Ponzio’s. During this time, Meloche said he engaged in a lot of good dialogue with hundreds of people in the township.
“People that I talked to, most of them were very supportive,” Meloche said. “A lot of people asked questions. We engaged in some fantastic dialogue with some folks on what, why and how.”
Meloche also noted there was a segment of residents who wanted to vote “no” and felt many of those residents rejected the questions for a variety of reasons, including property tax impact, concerns about the cost and details of the projects, the relationship between the referendum and the lack of state aid and more.
Moving forward, Meloche said he wants to hear feedback from residents on both sides so the district can come together with the community to find a solution for how to make necessary infrastructure upgrades in the district.
“As a community, we’re going to need to move forward and have these discussions about how do we provide the physical environment to support the work that the staff does,” Meloche said.
All election results are unofficial until certified by the Camden County Board of Elections.
