Shifting School Board Ballots to November Leaves Financing, Controversy Behind
With school budgets held in check, NJEA has little reason to reach deep in its pockets.
Moving New Jersey’s school board elections to November was expected to raise the stakes of these historically sleepy races, but at least in this first year, the money didn’t live up to expectations. In fact, campaign spending in these elections seemed to step way back. State campaign finance reports and a survey of school board members show tepid sums expended on individual races. And at least one huge player mostly stood above the fray. The New Jersey Education Association, the powerful statewide teachers union, spent virtually nothing on the elections -- after shelling out more than $4 million in the past decade and upward of $750,000 in 2011 alone. According to the state’s Election Law Enforcement Commission, the NJEA election committee…
