What Tenafly, NJ, Can Learn from Montclair’s Referendum Rollout

By Achyut Manoj at Tenafly TownSquare

Tenafly’s bond referendum has been swiftly underway since its approval in November of last year. Already, additions are starting to be planned and bid away to contractors, such as the new Tenafly High School air-conditioning and ventilation units being installed into the High School this summer. Similarly, many other municipalities across New Jersey have invested in bond referendums, for the same reasons as Tenafly: aging, outdated, and potentially hazardous school buildings and facilities getting causing safety issues and acting as roadblocks to progress and betterment. While Tenafly only started its bond referendum in the winter of 2024, albeit with years of prior planning, other towns are waist-deep into theirs’. On one hand, each town has different vital needs and goals that need to be met, which influence the direction and emphasis of their referendum projects, yet they’re all also very similar on a fundamental level. Analyzing other referendums can help Tenafly avoid potholes in the road to success, and provide insight for what the referendum might look like two or three years down the line. 

Montclair, for all its differences from Tenafly, can serve this very purpose. 

An overview of the Township of Montclair in Essex County. Source: Wikimedia @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4661576

In March, I spoke with Montclair Board of Education (BOE) member Brian Fleischer, a long-time resident of Montclair and a central figure in its community. He began his duties as a member of the Montclair BOE in January of 2023, involving himself in the progression of the bond referendum through his work on the Finance and Facilities Committees, as well as his term as Business Administrator from 2013 to 2016, in which he drew up surveys vital for the planning of Montclair’s referendum. In addition, his day job as Director of Enterprise Risk at the New York City School Construction Authority gave him experience in overseeing school facilities and mitigating associated risks, a central focus of Montclair’s referendum. In addition, he has two children, a high school junior and a middle schooler, studying in Montclair Public Schools. 

Although some of what I learned will not entirely apply to Tenafly, listening to Montclair’s road-to-referendum was incredibly interesting, and opened my eyes to the problems that other municipalities face. Hopefully, you’ll find this both a meaningful analysis in the context of Tenafly’s own bond referendum, but also an interesting read. 

To begin, Montclair’s situation leading up to the referendum’s approval was much more dire than Tenafly’s. Firstly, ten out of Montclair’s eleven public schools are decades old and haven’t faced significant repairs in years, with many being well over 100 years old. The exception is the Charles H. Bullock school, which while newer, has its own issues. Aging buildings have raised concerns about the state of school infrastructure, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, when insufficient ventilation and HVAC systems caused the school district to go online for longer than most other schools in the country. Teachers Unions were concerned about the inadequate ventilation posing health concerns, and parents were anxious to get their kids back in school. This culminated in a lawsuit; the Superintendent of the BOE sued the Teacher Union to bring teachers back to school, which was eventually settled. Moreover, a 2016 stairwell collapse in the Montclair High School spiked worries, as though the student walking down it at the time wasn’t injured, the county had to be reached out to for an urgent loan, and the entrance was blocked off for the entire school year. 

A street in upper Montclair. Source: Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Street_in_Upper_Montclair,_NJ_(2006).jpg

Evidently, major changes needed to be made, for the safety of students and teachers alike. 

However, a bond referendum had never been proposed before due to Montclair’s position as a “Type 1” school district until November of 2021; in this system, the mayor elects members to serve on a Board of Education instead of officials being elected. Facilities money is not taken from public bond referendums either. The Montclair BOE had to go to the Board of School Estimates, another board appointed by the mayor, for money, which they lacked due to debt racked up by the construction of the Charles H. Bullock School. Thus, only a bit of money was set aside for school repairs and renovations each year—not nearly enough to make a difference. 

Eventually, in the face of infrastructural issues and despite longstanding taxpayer concerns over whether an elected BOE would defund Montclair’s magnet schools, the people of Montclair voted in a Type 2 school district with elected officials, as in Tenafly. The Board of School Estimates was dissolved, and with that, the previous attempts at securing facilities funds. 

When the new Board of Education was elected, district superintendent Dr. Ponds worked to bring back the idea of a referendum, this time using bonds, not wholly relying on municipal and state funding. In a similar process to Tenafly, facilities were inspected and plans drawn up by architects, engineers, and business administrators, and though on a tight schedule to finish before the spring of 2022, Montclair was able to put out a plan for $188 million in spending to cover athletic, educational, and structural repairs, renovations, and additions across its eleven schools. Though initial issues such as a lack of big corporate taxpayers to share the increased tax burden should the referendum pass, and an initially estimated $400 million needed to cover all of Montclair’s crucial projects, the referendum persisted. 

The Board of Education building in Montclair. Source: Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Board_of_Education,_Montclair_NJ_(2006).jpg

While the history of Montclair’s referendum includes much more, including its Parent Teacher Association (PTA) efforts in bolstering the “vote yes” movement, letters to the editor in the Montclair Local, expert panels, and the community advice committee, what Tenafly can really take away comes from the aftermath of its approval. Many of the planned projects for Tenafly are similar to that of Montclair, including ventilation/HVAC renovations, athletic field additions, and repairs in auditoriums, so we can get a sense for Tenafly’s referendum through how Montclair’s own projects have been carried out. 

Interestingly enough, Montclair’s external projects, namely work done on its athletic facilities (ex. Baseball fields and new turf fields, staircases), were done in a fraction of the budget initially estimated, leaving a $3.1 million surplus. However, when the district started its larger projects, they started to hit roadblocks. With large interior projects, like media center renovations and HVAC additions, Montclair felt the effect of supply chain problems and uncertainty around tariffs, both products of an increasingly tense world stage. Mr. Fleischer admits that contractors were confused over prices of materials and labor, which might be affected by changing tariffs and immigration policy, and thus their bids for district-made contracts have all come in above their initial estimates. He adds that plans and prices estimated in 2022 would inevitably shift a few years later, evoking a need for value engineering to keep costs in line with the voter-approved amounts. Though some of Tenafly’s projects have already been approved and awarded to bidders, we shouldn’t assume that initial success will equate to consistent success. 

Despite careful planning, cost overruns occurred, though Montclair’s ability to effectively re-bid projects, value engineers, and re-prioritize have a chance at overcoming them in the future. Tenafly must be prepared to meet similar challenges along the way, and be flexible and trusting enough in its stakeholders and resources to adapt to such contingencies. 

One of the major complaints in 2024 against the Montclair bond referendum was a lack of publicly-released information about the state of the referendum’s projects. Tenafly already releases information in their Board of Education meetings, though information on current projects should still be more easily accessible. Maintaining public trust is paramount. Montclair’s transparency through weekly updates, advisory committees, and close collaboration with the PTA helped sustain credibility. 

Tenafly’s challenge now is to successfully carry out all of its projects within the confines of its voter-approved budget, all the while mitigating damages from inevitable roadblocks. To do so, flexibility, trust, and transparency are all required from the district and borough, as well as active resident interest in the referendum’s projects. By reflecting on Montclair’s successes and challenges, we can get a better sense of where Tenafly’s bond referendum is going, and for all the differences between the two, what challenges lay ahead.