HAMILTON TOWNSHIP - As Hamilton Township residents vote in November on who will run the nation as president, they will also decide who will lead the local school district as well.

The Hamilton Township Committee unanimously decided to move the township’s school board elections from their traditional April date to November during its Feb. 6 meeting.

Their decision becomes binding over the wishes of the local school district, which was  scheduled to entertain the issue on Tuesday, Feb. 7.

Hamilton Township Committee members said they wanted to entice a greater number of voters to participate in local school elections and to save costs by combining both elections to one day.

“Right now 1,000 people determine 65 percent of the property tax,” Mayor Roger Silva said, commenting on how few voters actually participate in school elections.

“I think the voter turnout is atrocious in April,” said Committeewoman Amy Gatto. “We have to find a way to engage more of the voting electorate.”

Township Attorney Robert Sandman said the committee had until Feb. 17 to decide if it wanted to move the school board elections to November.

“If not, you could revisit it next year,” he said.

But members of the committee wanted to make the move and appeared to have given the issue tremendous thought.

“We have to take the lead on this,” Gatto said.

Councilwoman Aline Dix had suggested that she was reluctant to vote for the move because it could lead to having two school elections each year if the Greater Egg Harbor Regional School District did not join in. However, Dix decided to join the rest of the committee in approving the change.

“I’d been advocating this since the 1990s,” Dix said. “But I don’t think we can jump into it.”

Silva said it was a tough decision, but that the members of the Township Committee were used to making tough decisions.

“I believe this committee has been able to make the tough decision,” Silva said. “And over time they have proven to be the right decision.”

However, once the move was made, the elections will have to remain in November for at least four years, Sandman said.

As long as Township Committee or the local school district approved the move, Sandman said, the school board elections would go to November irrespective of the other board’s wishes.

However, it is different with GEHR which oversees operations at Absegami High School in Galloway, Cedar Creek in Egg Harbor City and Oakcrest in Hamilton Township.

“If Greater Egg votes to move the elections to November,” Sandman said, “everybody would go to November.”

But if Greater Egg Harbor decided to keep its school elections in April, each of the school boards in its four constituent districts – Egg Harbor City, Hamilton, Galloway, and Mullica – would have to approve a move to November to force a change at the regional level, Sandman said.

They are limited by the same Feb. 17 deadline to make a decision, Sandman said.

Rodney Guishard, a former Hamilton Township school board member, expressed an idea that moving the school board elections would make them more political than they are now.

He urged the committee not to decide to move the school board elections to November.

The ability to move the school board election date came about after the State Legislature approved a bill earlier this year.

So far, school boards or municipal bodies in Pleasantville, Galloway and Egg Harbor Township as well as the Mainland Regional School District have approved moving school board elections from April to November.