Some N.J. towns moving school board elections to November

School boards in New Jersey have only have a few weeks to decide whether to move their elections from April to November.

The state Education Department has said local resolutions to make the change must be approved by Feb. 17.

Interest is greater than originally anticipated, according to Frank Belluscio, a spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association.

“With just over a week of the law being into effect, we’ve already seen over 10 percent of the state’s school districts move their elections to November,” he said Thursday. “And I think there are probably more out there that have not yet notified us of the change.”

Belluscio said one big reason for making the switch is financial certainty. Voter approval of school budgets that stay below the 2-percent cap on property tax increases is not needed if the elections are in November.

Some boards are reluctant to make the switch because they don’t want to combine nonpartisan school board races with the partisan general elections.