Because of the coronavirus pandemic, voting for the school budgets and for school board candidates will be done only through the U.S. mail. Absentee ballots will be sent to every registered voter and they must be filled out and received back at the district no later than 5 p.m. on Friday, June 9.

This year five candidates are running for the three open seats on the Marlboro School Board. Two incumbents are seeking re-election John Cantone and James Kuha and there are three new faces vying for a seat on the board – Michael Connors, Jeff Hacker and James Mullen. A term on the Board of Education is for 3 years.

John Cantone is seeking a second term on the school board. He was born in Brooklyn, NY., grew up in the Town of Newburgh and has lived in Marlborough since 2013. He has two children in the district, one in 7th grade and another in 9th grade. In June Cantone will celebrate his 38th year with IBM, presently serving in the company’s cloud division. He initially won a seat on the board in the aftermath of the power plant bankruptcy that left the district in a difficult financial standing.

“I always wanted to find the opportunity to give back to the community and I felt the school board was the place to do it, considering my skills in business and with management jobs for may years at IBM,” he said.

Cantone quickly realized that some things are out of the control of the district, pointing to the two percent tax cap for starters.

“It’s not really two percent every year; it’s a calculated value and if you lower your budget year to year it affects your tax cap in a downward direction,” he said.

Cantone said if the district were to find ways to significantly lower the budget, they might find the tax cap drop to 1% the following year. Trouble arises if and when the district would need to boost their budget and having to do it at the 1% level might force the board to have to garner a super majority for a budget that they present to the public. He said for several years Marlboro has been compiling a budget that matches the tax cap percentage, “so the revenue keeps flowing and we don’t wind up in a situation where we’re short that we have to go to the community for or dip into the reserves more than you wanted to or go to a super majority. To me that is a very inefficient way to do it.”

Cantone said even after the coronavirus the district should supplement the academic program with online learning, something he has been doing at IBM for 20 years.

“People need to open their minds to it because out in the workplace it’s happening everywhere and it’s been that way for a long time,” he said. “There’s no reason the educational system can’t be looking at it just as well.”

Cantone believes he is a good candidate for the school board, “because of the combination of my work managerial experience and financial budgeting, running budgets ranging from $20 million to $175 million depending on my position...I have a stake in the community, my children are here, I pay my taxes here and I think all of that puts me in a good position as someone who can contribute a value of what we’re trying to accomplish.”

James Kuha is seeking a third term on the board. He grew up in Newburgh and has lived in Marlborough for 20 years. His wife is a native of Marlborough and together they have a daughter in the district who is going into the seventh grade.

Kuha became interested in serving on the board, “because I believe the average person had a right to know and have a say of what was going on behind the scene.”

Kuha ran and won on a platform of fiscal responsibility and accountability.

“That hasn’t changed; the only caveat to that now is that the [capital project] Vision 2020 is in full swing and we’re getting ready to pick up on that,” he said.

Kuha also serves on the Facilities Committee that is fine tuning the final details of the project, “and I want to see this through to the end.”

Kuha has been a mechanic for Central Hudson but 18 months ago, “I made the jump to management. I am now managing the department that I used to work in; I am now a Transportation Foreman.”

Kuha said if he wins another term he believes it will be his last, “and then bow out gracefully and let someone else with a fresh perspective have a go at it.”

Kuha said there is some uncertainty about the start of the 20-21 school year because of the coronavirus.

“We’re really at the Governor’s beck and call but if kids go back into the classroom I think it’s a safe assumption that they will be behind,” he said, adding that some kids may have had difficulty with self-motivation during the online learning.

Kuha also wants to ensure that the district remains fiscally responsible to the taxpayers of Marlborough.

“I think we have a pretty cohesive team that is putting forward what I think the community wants,” he said. “We gave them Vision 2020 and still managed to save them money in the process.”

Kuha said it has been and honor and a privilege to serve the community, “and I hope either way we continue moving the district forward.”

Michael Connors worries that the district may end up in a fiscal situation similar to the period of the power plant bankruptcy.

“I fear that it’s going to happen again. I think the Governor is looking at cutting back on school budgets and I don’t think we have financial people on the board,” he said.

Connors has four kids in the district and said he would like to serve one term to hopefully have a positive dramatic impact on the district.

Connors owns a tax franchise with 14 offices and approximately 140 employees, “so I’m used to big payrolls and making sure the bills get paid. As a taxpayer here I’ve seen my tax bill go from $6,000 when I moved here in 1998 to around $14,000 now. I see my friends and neighbors and they’re struggling. I feel they need a financial guy to stop all this feel-good nonsense and take care of business with the money.”

Connors believes there are alternative revenue streams that would help Marlboro’s bottom line. He said looking at the financial “pie” to see where money can be saved has to change.

“My solution is we need a bigger pie; we need to create an environment where businesses can thrive and entice them into the area, making the district the focal point of the economy and to grow it responsibly and bring more dollars into the area,” he said.

Connors suggested building an amphitheater in the deep valley beside the elementary school where they can show movies, host performances, band concerts and also work with Tony Falco to invite bands to perform.

Connors said the district should be offering adult education programs and special classes in the late afternoons and evenings as a way to make money.

Connors said he would also propose the creation of a centralized special needs program in conjunction with other nearby school districts to help bring down expenses. Presently he said special needs students cost approximately $52,000 annually, with a regular student at about half that amount.

“We would get the best and brightest assembled together in a facility that is structured specifically for these children so they would get a better education and we would get them out of the classroom with the general population, which would allow them to grow and prosper better,” he said.

Connors said according to US News and World Report six years ago the district ranked 283rd in New York State, “and if you google them tonight you will find them the 571st.” He pointed out that Marlboro is, “the highest tax district in Ulster County,” adding that finding additional revenue, “would be job one for me because we need to get the teachers the resources they need to deliver a quality education but we need to revisit how education is delivered in order to make it better for all of our kids.”

James Mullen and his wife moved to Marlborough in 2015 and he is running for the first time for the School Board. Their eldest child will start kindergarten in September and three siblings will follow in the coming years.

Mullen was a New York City firefighter for 8 years but left due to an injury. He is currently the Aquatics Director and will soon be the Safety Director for the Rockland County YMCA. He said as a swim coach he has worked with children most of his life. This has spilled over into his desire to serve on the board. He said he comes from a family of educators, “and I just want to be a voice for them in the school district as well as for a person in the community to come and have their voices heard.”

In the fall Mullen said the district needs to be prepared.

“We need to have a full plan going into the school year of how parents can access this stuff more readily and easier while making sure all the children have the internet capabilities and the hardware that they need at home, so we might need to provide more for the families in the district,” he said, adding that creating a community committee to assist the district would be a good start.

Mullen said going forward the board and the district will be challenged on how to implement the Governor’s educational guidelines, “and how to make this new model fit...There’s always room for growth and we need to remember that every child learns differently and every child needs to be challenged differently. We have to keep that in mind looking at our school district as a whole.”

Candidate Jeff Hacker did not respond to an interview request or provide a photo. According to his Facebook page, he has been working in education for more than 17 years for Arlington Central School District as a Computer Network Technician and has a daughter who is a student in the Marlboro School District.