A REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
Background
The West Morris Regional High School District was formed on September 1, 1958, as a "limited purpose" district. This means that it does not operate as a K-12 school system. Instead, K-8 students of the constituent municipalities attend separate K-8 school districts maintained by four of the five municipalities. Chester Borough and Chester Township schools are consolidated under the name "Chester Township School District" and the remaining three municipalities (Mendham Borough, Mendham Township and Washington Township) constitute separate districts.
The District operates two grade 9-12 comprehensive high schools: West Morris Central (generally serving students from Washington Township) and West Morris Mendham (generally serving students from the Mendhams and the Chesters).
Funding
The current method of funding the District is the only method allowed by law at the time the District was formed. This method utilizes the equalized value of each municipality as the primary basis for determining the tax allocations. A smaller component includes the percentage of each municipality's students who attend the regional district. In other words, if Municipality A has 100 students in all, and 70 of them attend the local (k-8) district and the remaining 30 attend the regional District, then the percentage of that municipalities' tax allocation is 30%. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the State Tax Formula.
Deregionalization
It is important that the public understand that the District's Board of Education has NO ROLE in a deregionalization. Any deregionalization question must be put forward by the constituent boards of education or municipalities. The Board of Education likewise does not have the power to change the tax allocation. Tax allocation may be changed by two ways:
· a majority vote of the entire district; or
· a legislative remedy
As the WMRHSD has grown and populations and equalized valuations have shifted, there has been discussion about the tax allocation method and questions about deregionalization. To see how the regional tax allocation has impacted each WMRHSD over the past three years, click here.
Studies on the issue of deregionalization have been done several times in the District's history. In 2002 the District, along with all four of the constituent (K-8) districts, received a State grant of $52,000 (called a Regional Development Incentive grant, or REDI grant) to finance the most comprehensive and independent study done to date.
The REDI study examined six possible reconfigurations of the present regional district:
1. A West Morris all-purpose regional school district including all present districts and grades K-12.
2. The dissolution of the West Morris Regional School District with Washington Township taking West Morris Central High School and becoming an all-purpose (K-12) school district; and Chester and Mendhams taking West Morris Mendham High School and becoming an all-purpose (K-12) school district.
3. The dissolution of the West Morris Regional School District with Washington Township taking West Morris Central High School and becoming a K-12 school district; the Mendhams taking West Morris Mendham High School and forming an all-purpose (k-12) regional school district; and Chester becoming a K-12 school district and sending its 9-12th grade students to Mendham High School. (This would mean a send-receive relationship.)
4. Chester and the Mendhams form a K-8 limited purpose regional district with no other changes.
5. Mendham Borough and Mendham Township form a single school district with no other changes.
6. The withdrawal of Washington Township from the West Morris Regional High School District with Washington Township taking West Morris Central High School and becoming a K-12 school district; with Chester and the Mendhams continuing to send their 9-12th grade students to West Morris Mendham High School.
The report also outlined the types of changes to teacher assignments and salaries that would be required under each scenario and the changes in board representation that would pertain to each option.
The summary of the report said in part:
"As consideration is given to each of the six alternatives, remember that none of these changes can occur without a vote by the public on whether they want the change to occur. The financial comparisons are based on results that are averaged over five years. It would be inappropriate to make a long-term decision based on only one or two years of information.
In each of the six alternatives, there are winners and losers from a financial perspective. In some, the State of New Jersey will contribute additional state aid; in others it will contribute less. In each of the alternatives that does not involve dissolution of the current Regional District, the voters in at least one of the communities will have to vote to raise its own taxes. Since there appear to be no overriding educational issues, this is likely not to happen. Two of the alternatives involve dissolution with the forming of a four or five community regional district. Both of these also require that the voters in at least one of the communities vote to raise its own taxes...
…Dissolution requires a positive vote in a majority (three) of the constituent districts and an overall positive vote…
Because of the financial considerations, none of the six alternative configurations has much possibility of succeeding. Though each of the six alternatives offers savings to one or more community, the voting requirements make each of them impossible to achieve. Therefore pursuit of any alternative option at this time seems inappropriate."
A complete copy of the REDI report is available from your local library.