When Hopewell Valley voters went to the polls and voted by mail last week, they overwhelming defeated a $87 million school district referendum for improvements to district school facilities.
Voters on Sept. 17 voted against the bond referendum with 3,204 votes. Those who voted in favor of the referendum cast 1,473 votes.
There were 4,679 people who voted in the referendum. Some 2,878 votes were cast in person while there were 1,801 votes through vote by mail.
The results of the referendum reflect what has been posted online by the Mercer County Clerk’s Office as of Sept. 17 and will remain unofficial until they are certified.
“The district administration and Board of Education thank residents who took the time to learn about the referendum and to vote,” a school district statement said. “Our building needs remain, and we face tough decisions to address those challenges. We will carefully consider how to balance those needs with programming needs.”
With the referendum failing the school board will need to decide on next steps for the school district.
Superintendent Rosetta Treece previously explained that if the referendum failed one option would be to continue diverting funds from the educational programs toward temporary facility fixes.
“We submitted applications for the proposed referendum projects to the state Department of Education and that review process usually takes three to six months,” she said.
“The state only allows five days a year that schools can hold these kinds of votes, so options could include a referendum in March of 2025. If we couldn’t get the state review completed in time for that date, the next opportunity would be September of 2025.”
Proposed referendum projects were for Hopewell Valley Central High School (HVCHS); Timberlane Middle School (TMS); elementary schools – Bear Tavern, Hopewell, and Stony Brook; and Toll Gate Grammar School.
The projects include roof replacements; indoor improvements; HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) improvements; exterior door replacements; synthetic turf field; an auxiliary gym floor replacement; and building and classroom additions at Bear Tavern and Toll Gate.
“Without voter-approved bond funding, we would take care of some improvements with budgets funded by local taxes,” Treece said. “We would lose the opportunity to qualify for about $20 million in state aid, so improvements would take longer.”
Some of the referendum projects – building additions proposed for Bear Tavern and Toll Gate – would never fit into the district’s operating budget, she added.
