Burlington County, NJ Voters Go Harshly On School Board Budgets
BURLINGTON COUNTY, N.J. (CBS) - While voters throughout South Jersey approved the vast majority of school budgets in Wednesday's elections (see related story), there still seems to be a good deal of taxpayer discord in parts of Burlington County.
A handful of budgets were shot down in Camden and Gloucester counties, but in Burlington County, 17 of the 39 district proposals were rejected.
That proportion sounds bad indeed, but it pales in comparison to last year, when 34 of them were shot down by voters.
Frank Belluscio, with the New Jersey School Boards Association, has a theory about why Burlington County went the way it did.
"Statewide, we found out where municipalities submitted proposals to exceed the cap on the municipal budget. In those areas the school budget was also defeated," he says.
There were five towns seeking to go over the two-percent state-mandated cap (see related story), mostly to retain current levels of municipal services such as police and firefighting. Voters in Mount Holly, Lumberton, Medford, Bordentown, and Mansfield Township rejected them all, and their school spending plans -- perhaps not coincidentally -- went down with them.
Reported by David Madden, KYW Newsradio 1060
