Livingston voters will choose between two candidates for two open Board of Education seats on Tuesday, November 3, with a potential $227.9 million bond referendum facing the district.

Incumbent Fang Gong and first-time candidate Neal Adam Ashinsky filed petitions with the Essex County Clerk's Office before the Monday, July 27 deadline, according to the West Essex Tribune. Each seat carries a three-year term.

With only two candidates for two seats, both are positioned to join the board barring a write-in challenge. But the race still matters: whoever takes those seats will vote on whether to place the massive facilities bond before taxpayers, a question the board began publicly discussing at its Tuesday, July 14 meeting.

What the bond means for homeowners

Preliminary estimates presented at that July 14 session showed the $227.9 million bond would cost the average Livingston homeowner more than $1,000 per year in additional taxes, according to NJ Hills coverage of the meeting. That would come on top of the district's already-approved 2026-2027 budget, which carries a 5.18% net tax increase, or roughly $478 annually for a home assessed at the township average of $738,359, according to the district's budget page.

The board has not yet set a date for the referendum vote.

Fang Gong was first elected in 2023 and is finishing her first three-year term. A Livingston resident since 2010 with two children in the district's schools, Gong holds a master of public administration from Rutgers University and has served on the board's Curriculum, Equity, Policy, Long Range Planning, and Strategic Planning committees. She currently serves as Livingston's voting delegate to the New Jersey School Boards Association.

"Early in my term, a former Board member shared something that stayed with me: the first three years are the learning years," Gong said in her July 7 re-election announcement. "You learn the district, the budget, the policies, the people, and the community."

Neal Adam Ashinsky has not made a public statement about his candidacy. No platform or background information from Ashinsky was available in public records.

The next Livingston Board of Education voting meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, August 11 at 7 p.m. at the Administration Building, 11 Foxcroft Drive. Meetings are held in a hybrid format, with a Facebook livestream available for residents who cannot attend in person.