Voters in Monmouth County today voted on a plan that will merge three school districts into one.

It's the first regionalization ballot proposal in the state in a decade.

And while supporters see it as a way to save money and reduce school taxes, others aren't ready to let go of home rule just yet.

Ted Goldberg reports.

New Jersey has 600 school districts.

Tara Beams is the superintendent of three of them in Monmouth County alone and says regionalization would be better for her students, even though her districts are already sharing resources.

They've had a shared supervisor of curriculum instruction since 2006, shared director of Special services since 2007.

They moved to a shared superintendent in 2011 and they took on the name The Tri District to kind of summarize all these shared positions.

Voters in Monmouth County are voting today on a regionalized plan that would see the Henry Hudson district absorb the elementary districts in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands Beams says the 750 students spread across three districts would fare better under one umbrella.

We needed specialized instruction for students that were identified as being dyslexic.

When you have just maybe a very small handful of students in one school district, it's hard to find like a quarter of a teacher, right, Just for a couple of periods a day.

Leaders in Highlands are against the regionalization plan on today's ballot, but not regionalizing in general.

Mayor Carolyn Boullon says the funding formula would disproportionately hurt taxpayers in her borough.

We send over 100 less children into the school system, yet we're paying more.

What if they don't get to come in?

Here's the downside.

The funding formula stays in place for ten years.

They is Sea Bright.

They were supposed to join the districts in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands.

A feasibility study conducted by Kean University suggested all three of them should join forces.

But Sea Bright is sending its students to other schools in the county, and those districts have written to the state's commissioner of Education to keep them.

They have 22 students, I believe, a to a regional this year, and they're paying over $110,000 per student.

As a result.

Sea Bright isn't a part of this regionalization plan, but they could join later.

Highlands leaders are also upset at the balance of the funding formula and says it leans too heavily on property values rather than the number of students from each district.

Over changed everything immensely.

No one in their right mind would have ever thought that our property values would jump 20% a year.

Property values have gone up 82% in the last five years.

It's a wonderful thing.

However, in terms of that being the only basis for what proportion Highland will pay in terms of the funding formula.

It's it's not it's not worth voting yes.

For for us.

We keep saying and we stand by that this is the first step.

This has also been something that has been talked about and studied since 1978 for these three school districts.

Ballots close at eight tonight.

And poll workers tell me they expect the results soon after.

In Monmouth county, I'm Ted Goldberg.

NJ Spotlight News.