Vote YES/YES
on March 10
✓ Create fiscal stability ✓ Maintain local control
Our public schools were mismanaged by previous administrations. They left us with $12.6M in unpaid bills.
The way that New Jersey funds public schools is broken.
We have the opportunity to address both.
No matter the outcome of Montclair's special election, there will be more budget cuts. We will need to do more with less.
The question isn’t whether we cut. It’s how and who makes the decisions.
YES/YES reduces cuts to our schools
Costs are rising faster than tax revenue, creating a structural deficit — this means we will need to make cuts regardless of the outcome of the vote.
YES/YES ➞ $3.6M of cuts for the 2026/2027 year.
NO/NO ➞ $10.6M of cuts for the 2026/2027 year.
With a YES/YES vote, we add $5M in revenue for the district. Even with this revenue, costs are rising so quickly we will still be $3.6M short next year.
With a NO/NO vote, we start the 2026/2027 school year $8.6M short. On top of that shortfall, we lose an additional $2M of revenue because the state will reduce our annual state aid (“repaying the advance”), and we need to pay the monitor’s salary.
In January 2026, Superintendent Ruth Turner implemented $2.8M of painful cuts. An additional $3.6M will be difficult, but we have no way around it. An additional $10.6M would be devastating for our children.
YES/YES creates two pillars of financial stability
Question 1 addresses the debt we face due to mismanagement by previous administrations. They lied about growing costs, mismanaged the money, and left us with $12.6M in unpaid bills. Learn more about how we got here.
If Question 1 passes, there will be a one-time tax levy to pay off the accumulated debt.
Question 2 addresses our structural deficit. Mismanagement aside, New Jersey school districts are running out of money. Districts across the state are having similar Special Elections in an effort to increase revenue to keep up with rising costs.
If Question 2 passes, there will be a permanent increase in the tax base to better fund schools this year and going forward.
YES/YES buys us time to address the long-term challenge
"We can't tax our way out of a structural deficit, and we can't cut our way out of a structural deficit. We have to make sustainable changes within our district."
– Superintendent Turner
The $2.8M in program cuts and staff layoffs this year have already impacted Montclair students. These cuts brought down expenses, but we need to do more to address how quickly costs are rising year-over-year.
Turner is exploring deeper and structural changes to better position our district for the coming decade. For example, teams are looking into alternative sources of revenue, and taking a deep look at changes we might make to significant cost drivers such as transportation. These changes can’t be planned for—or implemented—overnight.
With a YES/YES vote, our schools can educate and nurture our students while these structural changes are identified, considered, and implemented.
YES/YES means local control
If Questions 1 and 2 pass, the superintendent sets the budget and is accountable to our elected Board of Education.
If either Question 1 or 2 fails, Montclair Public Schools will take an advance of state aid. The state will appoint a monitor who will control the district's finances. The monitor answers to the state—not to the district, the Board of Education, or the community.
Based on community priorities and feedback, Superintendent Turner has committed to:
A forensic audit
Programming to close the achievement gap
The state monitor’s mandate is simply to balance the budget. Against a backdrop of a $10M+ budget gap, a state monitor is unlikely to fund these sorts of initiatives.
We build a better school district by staying engaged, whatever happens on March 10th.
We must listen, ask questions, and advocate for our schools at the local and state level. These are the actions that made our schools so successful for decades. And, in this current moment, these are the actions that will transform Montclair into an example of how a community can come together to address a critical statewide problem.