Joan Minnuies Says Middletown Needs Referendum To Repair Aging School Buildings

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — There was a Middletown school board meeting Tuesday night, Oct. 27, and at it, Board member Joan Minnuies said the town will need to have a referendum in the future to make repairs to its aging school buildings.

A referendum is a public vote where Middletown homeowners would be asked to fund — such as in the form of a tax increase — major school improvement projects.

Minnuies said the two most expensive problems the district has to fix are HVAC systems that are more than 20 years old and getting increasingly expensive to repair, plus issues with poor heating in some of the district's elementary schools.

"We know that there are many things in this district that needs to be worked on and replaced. And it all takes money," Minnuies said Tuesday night. "So in my opinion, and I'm going to say it, if anyone in the community thinks that Middletown is not going to be going out for a referendum sometime in the next few years, they're mistaken."

Several Middletown schools are very old. That is why, in 2025 and again this year, the district proposed closing its two oldest elementary schools, Leonardo and Navesink. The district said Middletown schools have a budget deficit that is predicted to grow to $14 million by 2030. Closing those two schools would bring the district $3.7 million in recurring cost savings every year, the district previously said here.

Closing schools was met with fierce opposition from some parents and school board members, including Minnuies. Minnuies herself was one of the board members who voted multiple times against closing those two schools.

Minnuies addressed that at Tuesday's meeting: "No matter who's sitting on this board, our elementary schools need new HVACs, and that costs a lot of money. And some people say, 'Well, maybe you should've closed the schools.' Closing those two schools would not have touched the amount of money that we're going to need to replace those heating and air conditioning units ... We've let this go for so long, and I would say within a year or two, we're going to have a major problem if we don't start putting together what this district needs in priorities to start fixing our buildings."

The next Middletown school board meeting will be Nov. 10, at 7:00 p.m. in the media center of Middletown High School North. It will be a long-range facilities meeting and at it, the school board will discuss a long-range plan for all the facilities (school buildings) in the district.

It was also brought up at Tuesday's meeting that there are continued complaints about a bad smell in the gym/locker room at Thorne Middle School.

The district said it investigated and the source of the smell is not due to mold.

"The district is trying to investigate what exactly is causing the smell," said business administrator Amy Doherty.

She said the smell could be coming from mildew in an unused shower, wet material in a storage room or a problem with how the roof is draining that could be letting water inside.