Star Ledger, June 11, 2009/Morris Section – ‘Denville lawsuit challenges 60 percent voter requirement for local budget questions’

Township school board member Al Gellene. Gellene is challenging the New Jersey law requiring 60 percent of voters to pass voter approved budget items that exceed the spending cap.

DENVILLE -- Township school board member Al Gellene, several parents and local school students have filed a lawsuit challenging a state law that requires 60 percent voter approval of budget items that exceed a state-mandate spending cap.

The suit, filed in the Superior Court of Morris County, centers around the rejection of a $240,145 secondary budget question by Denville voters in April because it narrowly failed to get the 60 percent vote required by state law. The suit contends the law is unconstitutional and will cause "significant and irreparable" harm to the quality of education.

It asks the courts to compel Morris County Clerk Joan Bramhall and George Hanley, chairman of the Morris County Board of Canvassers, to certify the passage of the budget question.

The $240,145 request was for extracurricular activities, a maintenance worker and the string music program. Programs that could be eliminated or face substantial cuts as a result of the question's failure include band, chorus, drama club, cheerleading, student government, school newspapers and basketball.

According to the two-year-old law, a simple majority of votes is required to pass school budgets. But any requests above a 4 percent state limit on budget increases must be put to voters in a separate question, which must get at least 60 percent voter approval in order to pass.

Gellene said the margin is arbitrary and violates federal one-man, one-vote fairness rules.

"This is a very important question, one that I think could go to the Supreme Court," said Gellene.

Denville voters on April 21 passed a $24.3 million budget by a 1,926 to 1,309 vote, or a 59.5 percent approval margin. A majority also voted for the extra $240,145 by a 1,904 to 1,302 margin, or 59.4 percent. But that was just short of the necessary 60 percent needed for passage.

"The law is clear. They need 60 percent," said Bramhall, of Denville.

"We can't arbitrarily approve the vote in their favor. If they have a problem, they should go after the legislature that passed this law, " she said.

Gellene said he targeted Bramhall and Hanley on a legal technicality, but expects the state Attorney General's Office to intercede and eventually have the state become the prime defendant.

Eleven budget waiver requests statewide were put to voters in the April school elections and all failed to pass, said Frank Belluscio, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association. Five of those requests garnered more than a majority of the votes, but got less than 60 percent, he said. Included were Denville, South Amboy, Ogdensburg, Monroe Township and Kingsway Regional.

"We support a simple majority vote to pass budgets," said Belluscio. "If we don't ask for a super majority vote for constitutional amendments in New Jersey, why should there be such a requirement for a school budget question for, say, adding full-day kindergarten to a school district?"

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