Toms River School Board OKs Wording For Regionalization Referendum

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The Toms River Regional Board of Education voted Wednesday night to approve the wording of a proposed referendum to be posed to the school district's voters on adding Seaside Heights to the district.

That vote, however, came as the district is still waiting for approval for the proposal from the state Department of Education.

The district, along with the Borough of Seaside Heights and the Seaside Heights Board of Education, aim to hold the referendum during a special election on March 12.

The Toms River Regional and Seaside Heights school boards approved resolutions on Dec. 8 declaring their desire to have Seaside Heights join the Toms River Regional district, with Seaside Heights withdrawing from the Central Regional School District, where its middle and high school students have attended school for decades.

Those resolutions, along with one from the Borough of Seaside Heights, were sent to Acting Commissioner of Education Angela Allen-McMillan, who must approve the proposal.

Superintendent Michael Citta said the district has not been in touch directly with Allen-McMillan's office but he said the proposal has the support of the acting Ocean County superintendent of schools.

"I have been in contact with the acting county superintendent who is on board and in step with our timelines," Citta said.

The school board needed to pass the resolution approving the referendum wording to meet the timelines to hold a referendum on March 12 if the state approves it, board attorney William Burns told Lisa Contessa, who addressed the meeting as a resident. Contessa did not seek re-election to the board.

Allen-McMillan is stepping down as acting commissioner on Jan. 31, and as of Wednesday no successor has been named.

The March 12 referendum date would be the last opportunity to hold a special school board election before the start of the 2024-25 school year, as New Jersey law specifies dates for special school board elections.

"The commissioner's office is well aware of the urgency and the need to expedite this," Burns said.

Officials from the Toms River Regional Schools and Seaside Heights are eager to move forward, as a study on the proposed regionalization says Toms River taxpayers in particular would see a reduction in their property taxes once Seaside Heights is fully shouldering its share of the regional district tax burden.

Read more: Seaside Heights-Toms River School Regionalization: What It Would Mean

The proposed regionalization faces some hurdles, starting with opposition from Central Regional, which Burns said has requested a regionalization study of its own.

Toms River Mayor Daniel Rodrick also opposes the addition of Seaside Heights to the district, and sent a text message in December to voters in Toms River, paid for by his mayoral campaign funds, urging them to oppose the referendum.

Rodrick's text angered Citta, who openly criticized Rodrick at the Dec. 8 meeting, as did several members of the Toms River Regional board.

Krista Whitaker, a South Toms River resident, was critical of the structure of the referendum, noting that voters in Toms River can outvote the other towns — South Toms River, Pine Beach, Beachwood and Seaside Heights — and determine the outcome of the referendum, regardless of how the other towns' votes turn out.

Here is the language of the referendum:

Shall the Borough of Seaside Heights join the K-12 Toms River Regional School District as a constituent member, thereby withdrawing the Borough of Seaside Heights as a constituent member of the limited purpose Central Regional School District, with students from Seaside Heights being phased out of Central Regional School District and phased into Toms River Regional School District by grade; and with the property tax levy ofthe Borough of Seaside Heights being phased into Toms River Regional School District's current equalized property value tax apportionment formula with Seaside Heights paying the educational tax levy associated with its current elementary district plus the regional tax levy to Central Regiona for the year prior to regionalization while being provided with $1.2 million in savings each year in years 1-5, and further savings in years 6-10 while transitioning to 100% equalized property value, wih Toms River Regional taxpayers esitmated to save tens of millions of dollars over the same 10-year period?