Hillsborough Passes $2.8M Referendums, District Begins Hiring Security Officers

HILLSBOROUGH, NJ — Somerset County is reporting that votes from 100 percent of the districts are now in and both school referendums adding security and staff have passed in Hillsborough, according to unofficial results.

The vote tally remains unofficial as it may not include early voting, vote-by-mail, provisional ballots, or write-in votes. Final certification of the results must be done by Nov. 22.

Hillsborough voters were asked to spend a total of an additional $2.8 million to create a security department and add staffing at the school district.

Here are the real-time unofficial results of the Referendum:

Referendum - Adding Staffing

• Yes - 6,080
• No - 4,777

Referendum - Security Department

• Yes - 5,923
• No - 5,078

Hillsborough School Superintendent Michael Volpe thanked voters as it looked like both questions would pass.

"I wanted to thank you all. With 97 percent of votes in it looks we passed both questions for our Build Boro Back efforts," said Volpe in a video on X to residents on Wednesday morning. "I wanted to have an early morning thank you. We can always do this together.

He also announced that the district has already begun hiring for the added school security for positions of 9 Building Monitors and Coordinator of School Security Operations. Positions for 2 Parking Lot Attendants are also being advertised but are not associated with the referendum. Those positions were already pre-approved in the budget. To apply or for more information click here.

Board of Education

Additionally, four candidates were running for the three, three-year full-term seats up for grabs on the Board of Education.

Incumbents Cynthia DeCavalcante Nurse and Paul Marini along with Cassandra Kragh all won in the general election over Pritpal S. Phanda.

Here is the vote tally:

• Cassandra Kragh - 5,986
• Cynthia DeCavalcante Nurse* - 7,043
• Paul Marini* - 5,943
• Pritpal S. Phanda - 3,279

Correction - A previous version of this article had the incorrect number of building monitors. The parking attendant positions are also clarified as not being associated with the referendums.

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