Unofficial Results: School Budget Passes by Margin of Only Three Votes

The $55.1 million Fort Lee school district budget won voter approval with a narrow three-vote margin Wednesday, although those results are not official. The tally was 1,105 in favor and 1,102 against.

Election officials must review the ballots before an official count will be announced.

"It's very close," said Fort Lee Superintendent of Schools Raymond Bandlow. "And I'm certainly hopeful that the results will stand once the provisional ballots are counted and the count is official. At this point, the yes votes are ahead. We'd rather have it that way than the other way."

In the race for three seats on the Fort Lee Board of Education, one incumbent failed to win re-election. Incumbent Peter Suh finished first with 1,147 votes, followed by newcomer Helen Yoon with 1,083 and incumbent Joseph Surace with 1,019. Michelle Stux-Ramirez, with 937 votes, was the only incumbent who was not re-elected. Stux-Ramirez was followed by Tracy Mattei, with 933 votes, and Paul Umrichin, with 688 votes.

Yoon said she felt “great” after the results were announced and thanked her supporters.

“I know it was a tough race, but I’m really glad about the results,” Yoon said. “And I just hope that I can make a real difference for the kids in the community of Fort Lee.”

Suh also called the election a "tough" one, adding that "we had some really good candidates and a lot of good comments coming out of it."

"Hopefully we can take some of those comments, bring them to the board and get something accomplished," Suh said. "When I ran for the first time three years ago, they had mentioned blue ribbon school, and here we are three years later, and we actually have a blue ribbon school."

Suh also referred to the board's success in "stablizing the administration."

"What I'd like to see happen over the next three years is more of these good things continue," he said. "Let's keep moving the district forward. Let's keep thinking positive, and let's learn from all these new candidates that came out ... I think [the election] got the attention of a lot of people. But let's keep the momentum going, and let's keep talking about what this town needs, so we can do more good things and get more community involvement."

Mattei said she "wished the administration well in its endeavors."

"I hope that the makeup of this new board will be able to work together to make the district better," she said. "They have much work to do. It is a sad fact that there is little representation of parents with children in the district on the BOE. Congratulations to the candidates."

Umrichin declined to comment at Borough Hall other than to congratulate the winners, adding, "See you next year."

"Congratulations to the candidates who will be representing us for the next three years," he later wrote in an email. "I know that the two incumbents will serve us well as they have in the past. I am however disappointed with the residents of Fort Lee. It is disgusting that only a little more than 2,200 people came out to vote for the election and the budget."

The 2,207 votes cast on the budget indicate a voter turnout of just under 12 percent in a town with 18,453 registered voters.

The $55.1 million 2011-2012 school budget, which currently leads by just three votes, would raise taxes by 2 percent, or an annual average of $83 on a home assessed at $500,000. Although the school district gained about $566,000 in state aid this year, bringing the total to $951,643, the result of the state’s new 2 percent tax levy cap is a loss of $1 million in revenue for the district, according to school officials.

Those revenue losses would likely result in a reduction in staff, including the loss of two high school teachers, school officials have said.

The district’s central office would also be converted into classrooms.

On the budget, Umrichin wrote, "I hope that when the dust settles, the budget stays passed. It is very important to the students that they have every available dollar they can get from the budget. For it to come to this close a margin is another disappointing mark on the residents of Fort Lee."

Background On the Race

The three incumbents had run on their experience having served on the board, what they saw as the board’s successes during their terms and largely as a team—referring to themselves as “The S Team” (for Suh, Surace and Stux-Ramirez) in campaign ads, which trumpeted “stability and success.”

Suh, who stressed academic excellence and fiscal responsibility during the campaign, was previously quoted as saying of his running mates, “They are both experts in their industries, and as a group we offer a great wealth of information.”

Stux-Ramirez, a parent of two children in the district, emphasized not only her experience on the board, but also her professional experience in human resources and her community involvement, including with youth sports.

Surace, a lifelong resident of Fort Lee and the longest serving member on the board, whose adult children are products of the school district, emphasized how active he’s been in the community beyond the board over many years and his experience in finance.

The three held a joint campaign launch event in March, which drew the ire of their challengers and others, who said the attendance at the event of school officials and administrators, including the superintendent, assistant superintendent, business administrator and board president, was tantamount to those officials campaigning for the three incumbents.

All three of the non-incumbents were first-time BOE candidates.

Mattei, an educator by trade with prior experience as a sales consultant and a mother of two, has one child in the school district—her 8-year-old son, who attends School No. 4—and another starting soon—her 4-year-old daughter, who will be entering Kindergarten in September. Mattei ran on a platform of “education first, parental representation, community outreach and restoring trust.”

“The elementary schools do not have a curriculum and nobody on the BOE knows why,” she told Patch this week. “They allowed the referendum to take center stage and allowed the education of our children to fall by the wayside.”

Umrichin, who has three children in the district—sixth, seventh and eighth graders—including his son and two step-children, admitted to the Fort Lee Suburbanite that he didn’t have a “platform per se,” but rather was running to represent parents and “bridge the gap between parents and the board.”

“I am here because I want the children to thrive, be safe, and have their interests as well as the parents interests represented on the board,” Umrichin told Patch this week. “I am not running as a politician or at the interests of any organization.”

Yoon, the only candidate among the three first-timers who does not have kids in the school district but has said she plans to raise a family in Fort Lee, previously told Patch she was running for that reason and because of the “two recently failed referendums.”

Yoon, who attended School No. 3 in her youth and said she believed “the Fort Lee school system now is not what it was before,” emphasized her background in media and marketing as something the board could benefit from.

“There were just issues in the way [they were] presented in the community, and I think it affected the results of the referendum and the community’s take on it,” she said when she announced her candidacy. “And that’s something of my specialty and something that I can contribute to the board."

The Fort Lee Board of Education’s annual reorganization meeting is next Monday, May 2, at 7 p.m. at School No. 1.