Regionalization: the good, the bad, the ugly

Our school regionalization vote is looming.  On Sept 26th we will decide to either merge with Highlands district or continue on the status quo. It is one of the biggest decisions our town will take in many years.  So, what are the benefits and potential drawbacks of this plan? While it’s not nearly as good as it would have been if Sea Bright were involved, it may be better than nothing.  The high-level view follows.

The good

There will be lots of efficiency for the schools.  Consolidating three school boards into one will make decisions easier in the future, especially if regionalization with Sea Bright comes back. In the past too many cooks spoiled the broth with three boards and three councils.  Many people and many opinions made every decision a difficult one.

Administratively, a big burden would be lifted as the Superintendent and staff would not have to deal with three boards and focus more on the benefits to students as they progress through high school. Teachers can move between the schools if needed and fill gaps to improve the curriculum.  Curriculums can be better aligned between boroughs. While it is too early to say, it makes sense that a more efficient school district will be more manageable and in turn improve our students’ education as well. If a better school system is most important to you, this may be why you vote YES.

The bad

The tax savings proposed are so minimal as to be ignored. If you're going to vote YES because of tax savings, it is likely a mistake.  This is especially true when you consider that three union contracts will have to be combined into one after the regionalization. Since state law mandates that salaries can’t go down, the contracts with lower salaries and benefits will likely go up to meet the highest levels. Also consider record inflation; some would argue that salaries need to come up to offset the harsh increases in the cost of living we have seen in the last few years.  This is understandable and valid.  I believe teachers should be paid fairly.  They have an important job.  The salary differences are not supposed to be very big but nonetheless it's hard to see how the minimal tax savings we have in the proposal now will be maintained after consolidation. The only hope for real savings is that Sea Bright might be added in the near future and offset whatever tax savings are lost.  This seems unlikely based on Highlands’ adamant position that they do not want to share the savings equally, but instead want to use the funding formulas to their advantage so as to obtain a windfall.  We saw this recently and during last year’s negotiations.  We also need elected AH representatives that are steadfastly looking out for residents when that happens.  That did not happen last year or this year.

The ugly

Sadly, the opportunity for a great regionalization plan was lost last year after many, many hours of work by former Mayor Le Grice and her council, who did a phenomenal job as well as the incoming council in 2017. As it turns out, last year the Highlands council voted to approve a 50/50 savings plan and then reneged on the deal about a week later.  That deal would have saved Atlantic Highlands about two and a half million dollars over the next five years.  This was also very profitable for Highlands as the savings were equal for each town.  Each would have benefited by 1.23 million dollars.

Why might this have happened?  Based on my firsthand experience, a likely possibility is while Highlands and Atlantic Highlands attorneys were finalizing the details last August, an Atlantic Highlands councilperson, Lori Hohenleitner, took it upon herself to have secret conversations with the mayor of Highlands. This was done completely without the knowledge of the council or the Finance Committee which was leading the negotiation. Whatever she said, however well-intentioned, likely inferred to Highlands that there may be a better deal available for them.  And during the August 17th, 2022, Highlands council meeting where the regionalization vote was on the agenda, the Highlands council acted as though their attorneys had told them nothing about the details of the agreement, even though we had all been briefed numerous times that week about the discussions between them, right up-to-the-minute of our vote the day before.

The entire Highlands meeting was very negative, and their mayor even suggested we were extorting them. The Highlands mayor called out Ms. Hohenleitner, suggesting that it wasn't her.  She was in attendance at the meeting and is proof that she was speaking prior (listen to the whole August 17, 2022  meeting or just the mayors comments at: Council Meetings – Home – Borough of Highlands, New Jersey (highlandsborough.org); regionalization starts at 19:42 and the mayors comments regarding Hohenleitner are at 34:54).  It’s important to note that Hohenleitner had no authority to unilaterally discuss details without first talking to the Finance Committee which she was a part of and the AH Council attorney, Matt Giacobbe.  We'll never know what she said, only that the Highlands mayor pointed out Hohenleitner’s unsanctioned role in the discussions.  In my opinion, she was acting recklessly by inserting herself at the end of this serious negotiation without the knowledge of the Atlantic Highlands Council, their attorney and especially the other Finance Committee member and Chair, who together had responsibility for the negotiation.  This may have even been an ethics violation, but the AH Mayor did not want to pursue that course for harmony reasons.  Where was the transparency?  It was nonexistent.

Two possibilities as to why she acted the way she did:

There are two possibilities regarding Hohenleitner’s actions. One was she acted naively and unprofessionally, and the consequences of her secretive interference lost Atlantic Highlands residents approximately 2 1/2 million dollars over the next five years.  The other possibility is she did it on purpose.

Why might this be done on purpose? It's well known that she's the most politically oriented person on the council in years. She knew that she was running for mayor this year and if she could claim regionalization a success that would be good news for her this year. So, after the failed negotiation last year, she worked out an agreement with Highlands this year that gave them everything they wanted and gave up the equal sharing agreement and its approximately two and a half million-dollar tax savings for Atlantic Highlands.  

The agreement last year was suggested by a recognized expert in education from Trenton, Mark Magyar.  He suggested a simple 50/50 share savings agreement. It was easy to calculate; it did not involve the number of students attending each school or real estate equalization which is constantly changing and difficult to predict; this was rejected by the AH council for those reasons in favor of the 50/50 share plan. The 50/50 plan recognized that each town was equally important to the negotiation because there would be no regionalization without anyone of us.  It required a good neighbor attitude and a desire to give up a little to get a lot of benefits for each town.

Unfortunately, Highlands insisted on the prior formula which created a windfall for them and a several hundred-thousand-dollar a year loss for Atlantic Highlands.  Hohenleitner gave them exactly what they wanted this year and sealed the deal, thereby allowing her to claim she brought “regionalization to the voters”.  Unfortunately, her reckless actions also support her claim that “much of the work of the Council is done behind the scenes”.  Too bad it was done in secret and without telling the other council members what she did and said to make the deal go awry.  Working together we might have saved it.

When asked why Hohenleitner intervened on her own accord, without the knowledge of the council and the discussion to date still a secret, she has never given a reasonable answer. We are somewhat fortunate that the Commissioner of Education vetoed the plan and supported the smaller regionalization discussed here. Had that not occurred, we would have been stuck with the half million-dollar year loss and an unfair agreement for AH.  Now that we're amid an election, it's hard to imagine anything she says will be true or without a massive amount of spin to protect her image.  Can we count on her to do the right thing if she is mayor?  How will this affect future regionalization with Sea Bright?  It’s hard to be hopeful when our elected representative was having unsanctioned, secret meetings with the other party which likely undermined years of prior councils’ hard work.