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Study shows N.J. schools underfunded by $190M Saturday, October 21, 2006, The Record
..."We'd sure like to see how they are defining it," she [LynneStrickland, Exec.Director of Garden StateCoalition]said, expressing frustration at a lack of dialogue over the issues. "I would hope that we get a really open and viable discussion," she said. "These things must be aired in a public domain with enough credit given to the public to discuss it productively."
[NOTE: Strickland's comment on circuit breakers in the Record refers only to individuals under certain tax stresses, not to communities in general. The Record is printing a clarification on this that should be on p. A2 of its Sunday Oct. 22 edition.]
Star Ledger Mid-level districts short on funding, school study finds N.J. report: Hundreds feeling cash crunch
..."This is all about the bottom line, not the education or the kids."
[Bonnie] Granatir said her community [Livingston] is comfortable with how much it spends.
"When you look at how our children perform, they would see the money is well spent," she said.
Staff writer Mark Mueller contributed to this report.
Study shows N.J. schools underfunded by $190M
Saturday, October 21, 2006
The total price for education in New Jersey could be going up, state Senate President Richard J. Codey, D-Essex, said Friday.
"We may very well be doing that, and we're going to have to come up with [the money] to do it," he said.
Statewide cost estimates generated by the state Education Department and released this week indicate that spending during the 2004-05 school year should have been at least $190 million more than it was. The idea of the study was to gauge how much districts should be spending to provide students with a "thorough and efficient" education.
Codey declined to detail how much education costs might rise or how the state would fund a possible increase.
After lawmakers froze state school aid in most suburban districts in recent years, local property tax bills climbed to an average of $6,000 -- twice the national average. State residents pay the highest property taxes in the nation, with the bulk of the money going toward schools.
The state also released documents Thursday looking at alternate ways of funding education.
The district-by-district figures are based on advice from a group of experts assembled by the state Education Department in 2003, and the department's subsequent calculations.
The documents do not draw conclusions on how the findings might affect property taxes.
In
"The state has never clearly defined what they mean by a 'thorough and efficient' education," said Judith McKay, Teaneck Board of Education president. "So it's very difficult to comment on are we going above and beyond."
State officials declined to comment on the methodology or accuracy of the estimates, which officials would describe only as "preliminary" and a "work in progress." The data were released under court order, after a successful lawsuit by the
Some were critical of the state's reluctance to explain the figures.
"I would caution any legislator or district official or board member from putting any credence into these numbers, unless and until the Department of Education can come forward and present full documentation of how they arrived at them," said David Sciarra, executive director of the
Statewide, the data suggest spending was about 1 percent less than it should have been, Sciarra said.
Towns that spent less than the study said was adequate included 13 of the 31 so-called Abbott districts. Those low-income communities, including
Does that mean the Abbott districts aren't getting enough funding?
"I don't know if a lot of people in the Legislature would agree with that, with all the money that's been plowed into the Abbott [districts]," Codey said. "Suburban districts with special-needs students feel they are getting hosed. We're going to redo the school funding formula to be more fair to those districts while keeping Abbotts held harmless -- meaning their funding will not be cut but it will not go up like it had been."
Many suburban districts say the funding formula has left them out in the cold. State aid for
"Our needs are not any different than the Abbott districts," she said. "When individuals move [to
A committee of lawmakers is studying ways to change the school funding formula. The co-chairmen, South Jersey Democratic state Sen. John Adler and Assemblyman Herb Conaway, did not return several calls Friday.
The documents released included a year-old Education Department presentation on revamping the funding formula. Governor Corzine's office declined to comment on which ideas are under active discussion, saying only that "nothing is off the table."
One approach is a cap or "circuit breaker" that would limit how many local tax dollars go to fund schools. Another idea would tie the state's share of school costs more closely to individual home values.
"We're still talking about [the circuit breaker]," Codey said. "I'm not so sure that that's viable in terms of amount of money required."
Lynne Strickland of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, an education advocacy group, said her organization was "positive" about circuit breakers.
[NOTE: Strickland's comment on circuit breakers refers only to individuals under certain tax stresses, not to communities in general. The Record is printing a correction on this that should be on p. A2 of its Sunday Oct. 22 edition or Monday Oct.23.]FONT>
"We'd sure like to see how they are defining it," she said, expressing frustration at a lack of dialogue over the issues.
"I would hope that we get a really open and viable discussion," she said. "These things must be aired in a public domain with enough credit given to the public to discuss it productively."
E-mail: carroll@northjersey.com
Mid-level districts short on funding, school study finds
N.J. report: Hundreds feeling cash crunch
Saturday, October 21, 2006
BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL AND JOHN MOONEY
Star-Ledger Staff
Hundreds of
The controversial report, ordered to be released by a judge two weeks ago after an advocacy group filed suit to obtain it, shows most of
Poor districts, the recipients of vast infusions of state aid in recent years, also spend enough, on average, to meet the "adequate" threshold.
But for more than 250 communities in the middle --
The report, compiled by the state Department of Education, is likely to add more volatility to the debate over how best to cut
The findings came as no surprise to school officials in middle-income communities, where superintendents and school board members have long complained about funding inequities.
"By state aid remaining flat, it's pushed the burden onto the taxpayers," said Vincent S. Smith, superintendent of
The report compares district-by-district spending figures with what should be spent, as determined through a complex formula that takes into account the number of children who qualify for free lunches and those for whom English is a second language, among other factors.
Lobbyists assailed the state report, saying it is a sloppily developed tally that will muddy the debate as lawmakers and state officials prepare to unveil a new formula for distributing more than $7 billion in school aid.
"These budgets are not credible unless and until the department can fully document how they were calculated," said David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, the organization that sued for the report's release and that has handled a long-running lawsuit over public school funding in 31 of the state's neediest communities. "Clearly, the department's effort to determine education costs was not professional, rigorous or thorough."
As presented by the state, there is a clear pattern to school funding in
Across the school districts identified as the state's neediest, those included in the Abbott vs. Burke lawsuit Sciarra has handled, actual spending in the 2004-2005 school year was almost exactly in line with the spending levels the state determined to be necessary.
In those districts, a total of $3.9 billion was spent compared with the $3.874 billion the state calculated to be needed -- a difference of barely one-half of 1 percent. Almost all of that spending is bankrolled by state aid, required by a series of state Supreme Court orders in the Abbott lawsuit.
Among the 128 communities classified as the state's wealthiest, actual spending exceeded the amount the state formula determined was needed.
Those communities spent a total of $3.14 billion on school last year, about $166 million above the amount the state formula deemed adequate. There, state aid is minimal and local property taxpayers shoulder the bulk of school costs.
For hundreds of communities in the middle, however, the state tally paints a different picture. Officials in those communities say state aid has fallen far short of meeting actual needs, and local taxpayers have been tapped out.
"The burden falls on the taxpayers to come up with the difference, and this community is a middle-class type of environment and not in the position to come up with the money to pay these expenses," said Frank Buglione, superintendent of schools in
State Education Department officials, who fought a lengthy court battle to try to keep the tally under wraps, declined to go into detail about the report.
"It's work product; it's preliminary," department spokeswoman Kathryn Forsyth said.
On Tuesday, the author of the formula on which the state based its report is scheduled to appear before the special legislative committee developing a new school funding formula.
That consultant, John Augenblick of
Augenblick was hired three years ago to oversee the development of a method for calculating how much money it should take to offer an adequate public school education in each
Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, whose membership includes many of the state's wealthier school districts, accused state officials of skewing the numbers to underestimate the actual cost of schooling in
"Without the ability to review this and see what goes into it, how can we say the spending above this prescribed line is inappropriate? I don't think we can," she said. "Given the way this has been rolled out at the last minute, this smacks to me as a low ball entry into the first round of this debate."
The report raised concern in districts where it said spending was higher than necessary.
"I'm very nervous," said Bonnie Granatir, president of the Board of Education in
Granatir said her community is comfortable with how much it spends.
"When you look at how our children perform, they would see the money is well spent," she said.
Staff writer Mark Mueller contributed to this report.
