Page 4 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • January 15, 2014 FLOW Area Regional school board supports budget extension by Frank J. McMahon The Ramapo Indian Hills Regional High School Board of Education has passed a resolution that supports the pas- sage of legislation that would extend the budget submis- sion date for districts with November elections. The 2011 state law permitted school districts to move their elections to the November general election date in return for keeping their budgets at or below the state-man- dated cap (currently two percent) and 90 percent of all school districts have chosen to make that change. The current school budget submission calendar has not been changed, however, to reflect the fact that the majority of school districts no longer have April budget votes. “The districts that no longer have an April budget vote would benefit greatly by having more time to prepare and submit their budgets to the county offices for review and approval,” the Ramapo Indian Hills resolution states. “The proposed legislation recognizes that benefit by extending budget submission dates for those districts with November elections.” There are two identical bills in the New Jersey Legisla- ture that address this issue: A4300 was passed by a 78-0-0 vote in the NJ Assembly and S2877 was recently amended by the NJ Senate. The proposed legislation states that a school district with an annual school election in November would have until March 20, instead of March 4, to adopt and submit a budget that provides for a thorough and efficient educa- tion to the executive county superintendent and the public hearing on that budget would be extended from between March 22 and March 29 to between April 24 and May 7. Frank Ceurvels, the business administrator for the Ramapo Indian Hills Regional High School District, wanted the budget submission date extended further, saying, “I was personally hoping it would be extended a bit longer, but anything is better than March 4 if we’ll continue to receive state aid figures the last week in February.” Ceurvels explained that, under the current timing, the office of the executive county superintendent only has about two weeks to review budgets. Under this revision, the office would have about a month. Patrick J. Diegnan Jr. (D-18 Middlesex County), Troy Singleton (D7 Burlington County), and Shavonda Sumter (D35 Bergen Passaic) are the primary sponsors of the Assembly bill, which was introduced on June 24, 2013. On Nov. 25, a statement was issued by the Assembly (continued on page 6) Trustees elect new BOE president The Ramapo Indian Hills Regional High School Board of Education has elected school board member and Wyckoff representative Thomas Bunting to be its president for 2014. The board reorganized on Jan. 6. Elizabeth Pierce, an Oakland representative on the board, was elected the board’s vice president, while Lynn Budd, a Wyckoff representative who was the board president for the past year, will remain on the board as a member. The meeting began with the swearing in of recently re- elected trustees Bunting, Budd, and Franklin Lakes repre- sentative John Butto. Bunting was then nominated by board member Kenneth Porro, a representative of Wyckoff, to be the board’s president and he received the paper ballot votes of all the school board members present. Sadie Quinlan, an Oakland representative, was not present at the meeting. Pierce was then nominated by Budd to be the vice presi- dent and was elected 5-2. The two dissenting votes were cast by Butto and Oakland representative Jane Castor, who had nominated Quinlan. Porro abstained from the vote for Pierce and Quinlan. The meeting dates of the school board for the year 2014 were approved and Frank Ceurvels, the school district’s (continued on page 31)