Bramnick BOE Budget Delay Bill DOA Due to Legislative Recess

A bill introduced by Assemblyman Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield) to postpone the Board of Education elections is dead on arrival due to a legislative recess.

Bramnick announced his introduction of the bill during Tuesday night's Board of Education meeting, where the board announced proposed layoffs and program cuts in response to Gov. Chris Christie's decision to slash local education aid by $4.22 million. Bramnick introduced his bill, which impacts the April 20 school election, on Monday and the state legislature is in recess until May.

Bramnick said he introduced the bill in order to postpone when local school boards have to adopt budgets in order to qualify for the ballot. The current deadline is April 3. Local school districts statewide have been working to close multimillion dollar budget gaps in a short time frame based on the March 16 announcement by Christie of the larger than previous announced cuts to state education aid. On March 2, state Education Commissioner Bret Schundler had warned districts to expect a cut of no more than 15-percent, the final cuts came in between 80 and 100-percent to suburban districts statewide.

Bramnick said the bill would be unlikely to be heard in the legislature given the traditional April recess for the budget committees to conduct statewide hearings on the budget. The full legislature and other committees are not scheduled to meet again until May. Bramnick's bill would be under the jurisdiction of the education and state government committees in both houses.

Bramnick, the second ranking Assembly Republican, said the decision to call the legislature back would fall to Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange) and Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford). He said he has not heard an indication from either to call the chambers back. Westfield BOE members have petitioned Christie to use his power to delay the election, which the governor has indicated he is not inclined to do.

"If I can call the legislature back I would," Bramnick said. "I don't have that power."

The legislative schedule was greeted with anger from school board members, who noted they have been meeting most weeks to discuss budget issues. The board's finance committee has convened multiple meetings since Christie announced the budget cuts. Board member Ann Cary jokingly said she'd run for the legislature due to the meeting schedule.

Tuesday night's meeting featured Schools Superintendent Margaret Dolan outlining proposals to layoff 27 staff members, along with eliminating such programs as eighth grade sports, intermediate school dramas, library book purchases and a printed district calendar. Bramnick spoke after Dolan gave her presentation.

Bramnick was told that while the legislature would not be taking up the bill until May at the earliest, the board would be tackling the budget in the interim.

"This board and this administration will be working 24/7," board member Richard Solomon said. "We are not taking a break until May."