Toms River-Seaside Heights School Merger Referendum: Voting Info

TOMS RIVER and SEASIDE HEIGHTS, NJ — Voters in five towns will have their say on Tuesday in a referendum on whether the Seaside Heights School District should merge with the Toms River Regional School District.

The Toms River-Seaside Heights special school election will be held from 1:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 16 in Seaside Heights, Toms River, Beachwood, Pine Beach and South Toms River.

In the Toms River Regional District, schools will have early dismissal because of the special election because some polling places in Toms River are in schools.

Want to vote by mail? Vote-by-mail applications can be submitted in person at the Ocean County Clerk's Office until 3 p.m. Monday, April 15.

Completed vote-by-mail ballots can be returned by mail (they must be postmarked by 8 p.m. on April 16) or deposited in one of six Ocean County Board of Elections vote-by-mail dropboxes. They must be deposited by 8 p.m. on April 16.

What's on the ballot? The only item that will be on the April 16 ballot will be the question asking voters whether the Seaside Heights School District should be permitted to withdraw from the Central Regional School District — where its seventh through 12th graders currently attend school — and join the Toms River Regional School District.

For the regionalization to move forward, voters in Seaside Heights will need to approve the proposal, and voters in the Toms River Regional District as a whole will need to approve it as well. If either group rejects the proposal, the regionalization will not move forward.

Toms River River Regional school district officials held three information sessions in mid-March. Each session was one hour long. The recordings can be viewed here:

• Monday, March 18 information session
• Tuesday, March 19 information session
• Thursday, March 21 information session

In addition, the Toms River Regional Board of Education held its monthly business meeting; the public session of the meeting can be viewed here.

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

This is the wording of the referendum, as approved in January:

"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 of the 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 Regional 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?"