School Board Candidates Have Until June To File To Run

The move from an April school board election to a means to run as a candidate.

Now, candidates have until June 5 to file a petition to run in November, said the county clerk's office. Today was the deadline under the April system.

Lakewood will still have an April school board election and budget vote, but nearly every other school district in decided to move its school board election to November.

That also means the Central Regional and Berkeley school budgets will no longer go before voters. The budgets will instead be decided by the school board this spring, unless the school tax levy budget grows more than 2 percent over last year. Only if the school district presents a budget more than the 2 percent cap will it be required to put the budget before voters.

The move to a November election was allowed under a newly passed , giving districts the choice to keep an April election or move it to coincide with the general election in November.

Candidates will be listed in a separate section on the November ballot, as school board elections are nonpartisan.

Three, three-year terms are up for grabs in the first November election of the nine-member Central Regional board.

The Berkeley Township seats now held by Robert Everett and Keith Buscio and the Island Heights seat held by Susan Cowdrick all expire at the end of the year. A one-year unexpired Berkeley Township seat currently held by Thomas Ranieri is also up. Ranieri was appointed to fill former board member Robert G. Ray's seat after Ray was elected to the Township Council.

Three 3-year terms on the nine-member Berkeley Township school board are also up at the end of the year. John Macmoyle, Louuis J. Tuminaro and David M. Ytreboe were all appointed to unexpired terms earlier this year to replace John Bacchione and Thomas Grosse, who were elected to the Township Council.

Former Berkeley school board president James J. Byrnes was appointed to the Township Council on New Year's Day, leaving another seat open.