Reducing the terms of elected school board members is the first leg of an ambitious and potentially controversial set of proposals from Rep. Paul Baumbach (D-Newark).
A bill he introduced Tuesday drops school board terms from five to three years, which Baumbach says would increase participation.
"If you can say, ‘Well, I’m willing to certainly give it three years and then I’ll see how it is and how I enjoy it and how I do with it, maybe I’ll run for reelection after [three years],’ that’s less intimidating and we have the potential of increasing the pool of candidates – better choices for the public,” Baumbach said.
He also says it’ll make board members more accountable to the public and may help him gain support for allowing districts to administratively raise property taxes up to a certain percentage without a referendum to fix what he calls an 'antiquated' school funding system.
“That’s what this would do, but it would be premature to lead with that. I think it’s more important we need to first make sure the foundation is strong, make sure the public has faith in their board members and know when they lose faith in the board members, they can replace them with better board members.”
Former Rep. Darryl Scott (D-Dover) introduced a similar measure in 2014 with a three percent threshold, but it never gained any traction.
Baumbach’s first bill awaits a committee hearing, but he says he doesn’t have a timeline for releasing his second proposal.