After voters did not approve a Freehold Regional High School District referendum last year, I was not surprised they would try again, similar to what the Marlboro K-8 School District did, (and that referendum) was rejected twice.
This time the FRHSD decided to split the referendum into three, including different schools in each question to look to ensure passage by the sending districts for their school.
However, based on a recent article, it seems that in reality it is not three questions. This one sentence stood out quite plainly, “District administrators have said Question No. 2 and Question No 3, together or individually, can only pass if Question No. 1 is approved by the voters.”
Doesn’t that actually defeat the purpose of three separate questions? Why split the original defeated referendum when the public has been told they require one to be passed?
On that principle alone I urge everyone to defeat all three questions in November as this is just a ruse to ensure that one question must be passed before anything else will be done in the district.
This, on top of another article, that the FRHSD seems to have quickly taken advantage of the elimination of the superintendent salary cap and awarded Mr. (Charles) Sampson a new contract with a nice jump in salary.
This also opens the door to further increases for the other administrators who were, similarly, capped so as not to be paid more than the superintendent (the decision to eliminate caps was a poor one made in Trenton that will have a negative impact on the already beleaguered taxpayers).
Add to that the cut in state aid the FRHSD will be receiving and you have a Board of Education that is not showing any fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers of this district whatsoever, as local property taxes will need to be further increased. This is just another reason to defeat all three referendums.
The board and the administrators need to show more fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers to get things done more economically, rather than play on people’s fears on security (the bulk of Question No. 1) to get things done.
Barry Hochberg
Marlboro
