School Bond Referendum To Be Postponed In Moorestown

MOORESTOWN, NJ — Moorestown's school bond referendum, which was tentatively scheduled for a March vote, has been postponed until at least the fall.

The Moorestown School District initially targeted March 11 for township voters to authorize significant upgrades to all schools. But this week, school board members decided they needed more time to determine which projects will advance to the ballot.

New Jersey only allows school districts to hold bond referendums on a handful of dates each year. After March, the next available date for Moorestown to hold a vote is Sept. 16, says Board of Education President Mark Villanueva.

In a bond referendum, residents vote on whether their local school district can issue bonds to fund major construction projects and renovations. While it typically comes with a local tax increase, a successful bond referendum ensures that the state will partially fund those upgrades, which are typically only supported through local property taxes.

Back in July, Moorestown schools submitted 18 projects to the New Jersey Department of Education, which must determine how much the state would fund each project if a referendum passes. The board hoped to receive those answers in late November or early December.

But the state did not return those answers until Monday afternoon, only days before the district's deadline to submit ballot questions for a March 11 vote, Villanueva said.

"While we’re disappointed we weren’t able to meet the deadlines, on a positive note, it does afford us an opportunity to continue to hear from the community," Villanueva said at Tuesday's school board meeting.

Under the district's current vision, a successful referendum would reduce class and upgrade infrastructure at each district school. William Allen Middle School's building would expand, allowing the Grades 7-8 school to take in sixth graders. Moorestown Upper Elementary School, in turn, would accommodate Grades 3-5.

The four lower elementary schools, which have faced some of the district's greatest overcrowding issues, would go from PreK-3 to PreK-2.

The state determines how much of each project it will agree to fund, allowing Moorestown school officials to determine the local tax burden on each project and, ultimately, which will appear on the ballot.

School districts must submit ballot questions to their county elections board at least 60 days before the scheduled vote. With the state responding Monday, Moorestown's board of education only would've had a few days to determine the referendum questions (there could be one or multiple).

Over the past month, district officials have also faced pushback on one of the proposed projects, which would move the school system's bus lot from Moorestown High School to the back of the Upper Elementary School (UES).

At Tuesday's board meeting, more than a dozen residents who live near UES spoke out against the plan, outlining concerns about additional traffic, health impacts of diesel fumes on children and eliminating part of the school's rear field for the fenced lot.

"This referendum is really important for the needed infrastructure for our schools, and I would be a champion of the referendum if it wasn’t for the bus depot portion of the plan," said Dr. Tammy Solitro, a physician who lives near UES. "I worry you have a lot of voters like myself and risk losing support for the whole."

Several residents said they'd prefer to move the bus depot away from any of the district's schools. The referendum delay gives the district more time to explore other options.

"Certainly the bus depot is something where we’re acutely aware of everybody’s concerns that we’ve heard from," Villanueva said. "We’re taking this seriously, and this additional time will give us the opportunity to digest the information we received from the state and to very seriously consider the issues that have been brought to our attention."

Visit the district's referendum website, and watch Tuesday's board meeting here.