Tax Vote Could Have Far Reaching Effect In Part Of Gloco
NEWFIELD, N.J. (CBS) - Voters in one Gloucester County community this week said no to a tax increase for schools. The decision could well add up to bad news for a pair of neighboring towns.
Less than 300 voters in Newfield Borough decided by a better than 4 to 1 margin against raising taxes by more than a half a million dollars.
"The impact on the local taxpayer in Newfield would be very dramatic," Newfield schools business administrator Henry Berman tells KYW Newsradio. "It would be about six or seven hundred dollars on the average homeowner."
So the alternative is to cut spending, right?
Wrong.
More than 500 Newfield kids attend schools in the Delsea Regional and Franklin Township school districts. They would have to do the cutting.
Newfield does have a school board, and Berman suggests they have little choice:
"What it needs to do is actually appeal this to the Commissioner of Education because Franklin and Delsea educate all the children for Newfield," he said, "and we have contractual obligations to both of those school districts."
The Commissioner has the power to overturn the voters decision.