By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
The Board of Education president who oversaw stable school taxes in Sea Isle City for nearly two decades has decided not to run for re-election.
Dan Tumolo, 84, said he is stepping away from the board for health reasons. He has served as president for all but one year since joining the board in 2006.
In an interview Monday, Tumolo said he believes that the board’s greatest achievement during his time as president was keeping the school tax rate the same year after year.
“My legacy is no tax increase,” he said. “I think that when I was working and was heavily involved in finance, that carried over into the budgeting process that I used when I was at the school board,” he said.
Tumolo worked for 37 years with the tableware and giftware maker Lenox Corp. when it operated a manufacturing plant in Galloway Township, N.J. His served as audit manager for three years and then audit director for 34 years with Lenox.
His current three-year term with the school board expires Dec. 31, 2023. There are two school board seats open in the Nov. 7 election, but incumbent Kerry Mullane is the only candidate on the ballot. No one else filed to run in the election to succeed Tumolo.
Assuming that Mullane wins re-election, there is the possibility that a write-in candidate could fill the other school board seat.
In the 2021 election, a write-in campaign was successful in keeping incumbent Patricia Halfpenny on the Sea Isle school board. Halfpenny wanted to run for re-election, but didn’t submit her nominating petitions in time to be officially placed on the ballot.
Hoping to keep Halfpenny on the board, other members of the school board were part of a community campaign to get her enough write-in votes to win re-election in 2021.
The school board will hold its annual reorganization meeting on Jan. 2, 2024, to select its new president. Tumolo said he hopes to attend the reorganization meeting to say farewell to the board.
Among other duties, the five-member board is responsible for putting together the school budget each year. Sea Isle’s local school tax rate has remained stable year after year under Tumolo’s leadership.
Sea Isle closed its public school in 2012 due to declining student enrollment. However, it maintains an annual school budget of about $2.6 million to pay for the cost of sending Sea Isle’s students to other districts, primarily Ocean City.
Although tuition and transportation costs make up the bulk of the school budget, there have been other major expenses over the years.
Sea Isle’s school budget has supported a number of education and community initiatives in the Ocean City school district, including mental health counseling, drug prevention, a creativity innovation project and an SAT testing reimbursement program for students.
The Board of Education also has partnerships with the city and the Sea Isle City Chamber of Commerce and Revitalization for initiatives that benefit local schoolchildren.
Budget spending started to drop overall when Sea Isle began sending its students in grades fifth through eighth to Ocean City in 2010, followed by third and fourth grades in 2011 and first and second grades in 2012. The school was closed in 2012 because there were not enough students to continue operating it.
The old school building at 4501 Park Road was demolished earlier this year to make room for Sea Isle’s proposed $20 million community recreation center. The city is going through final revisions with the recreation center’s designs before it advertises for a construction contract.
Barring major delays with construction, the community center is tentatively scheduled to open sometime in 2025, according to city officials.
The community center will occupy the same footprint of the old school on the block bordered by Park Road, Central Avenue, 45th Street and 46th Street.
