A Letter To The Editor From Berkeley Township Board Of Education Candidate Marguerite Penn

A Letter to the Editor from Marguerite Penn, a candidate for the Berkeley Township Board of Education:

As a supporter of the fair school funding formula since when former Republican Club President James Fulcomer had state Senator Michael J. Doherty explain his plan to the public at Central Regional Middle School years ago, I commend Senator Doherty for his uphill progress in promoting his plan.

We must, however, take action locally now to lower our school taxes, since the fair funding school formula is years away from the adoption due to the opposition of the majority party in the state legislature and the opposition of the state Supreme Court.

The Berkeley Township school board can work with the Central Regional school board to have one superintendent instead of two and have one team of department heads instead of two teams for our two school district.

This economy-minded consolidation was successfully achieved for Central Regional and Seaside Heights, saving Seaside Heights a great deal of money and actually improving the education of their children.

If our incumbent opponents had followed this policy starting when they first entered office, using attrition and firing no one, we definitely would be paying over one million less in school property taxes today and perhaps even two million less.

The elimination of the unnecessary elementary school superintendent alone would save hundreds of thousands of dollars. The far more experienced Central Regional superintendent has offered to do that job for nothing - including no fringe benefits.

Freeholder Joseph H. Vicari did the elementary school superintendent job excellently for $18,500, with no fringe benefits.

The totally unnecessary elementary school superintendent position is now the highest paid political patronage job in Berkeley Township, with a salary even higher that the salary for our municipal administrator, higher than the Central Regional superintendent and at the outset of the current contract, had higher taxpayer funding than the governor's salary!

My analysis of the Berkeley Township school budget indicates that eventually, through consolidation with Central Regional, we could save as much as two million dollars a year to enhance the education of our children.

My running mates and I are committed to making sure that school funds are spent only on the children and not on partisan political patronage. The children and the taxpayers must always come first.

Please help me save money for the taxpayers and for our children by voting Donnie Clyburn (3h), Matthew G. Parks (4h) and John Paul Sisler (5h) for Central Regional; and Michele Shedlock (1i), Marguerite "Marge" Penn (2i) for our local school districts.

We need the election of all six to promote the cooperation we need between the two school boards to lower our school taxes and to put our children first. Our school taxes should be no higher than what we need to give our children a first-rate education. Our school taxes should not be used to enrich politicians.

Image: Patch file photo.