| |
Mergin school districts, funding study - court ruling, salaries listed on Dept of Educ website,
Top Democrats offer rival tax-cutting ideas
Thursday, October 12, 2006
BY TOM HESTER
Star-Ledger Staff
Two ideas to reduce school administration costs as a way to ease property taxes are clashing in the Legislature.
Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) said yesterday the best method to cut taxes is his proposal to create 21 "super" county school superintendents to oversee local school costs. He introduced the measure as part of a five- bill property tax relief package in May.
Roberts' position is not dissuading Sen. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex), co-chairman of the Joint Legislative Committee on Government Consolidation and Shared Services. Smith has proposed creating 21 countywide "administrative" districts to handle purchasing, human resources, transportation and curriculum decisions while eliminating nearly 600 high-paid local school administrators and their staffs.
After an appearance before the committee, where he pushed his tax relief package, Roberts said of Smith's idea, "Some people may feel a move to 21 county districts may be too radical. You want efficiencies at the local school district level."
Roberts added, "I think the county school superintendent model gives us the best model. You may ultimately have the ability to move in that direction once we create this person."
Smith said there could not be powerful county superintendents without countywide districts.
"I believe his 'super' superintendent fits in very nicely with the idea of county administrative districts." he said. "You would put 21 super superintendents in as super superintendents of what? Over 600 administrators? If you allow all the existing districts to stay, all the bureaucratic overhang stays there -- 600 local superintendents, 600 local lawyers, 600 local budgets."
Smith said he sees a compromise emerging in the end.
"One of the great things about these hearings is that we are get ting a chance to dissect proposals."
Roberts told the committee he could foresee legislation that would deny state aid to municipal governments or school districts that show they are operating inefficiently or fail to act on obvious shared services opportunities.
"There have to be consequences, certain areas of state aid they would not be eligible for," he said.
Roberts' tax relief package also calls for moving school board and fire district elections from April and February respectively to November, the consolidation of more than 300 state statutes he believes hinder government consolidation and increased disclosure of municipal and school budgets.
Gov. Jon Corzine is opting not to take sides, at least publicly, in the clash of ideas between Roberts and Smith.
"The governor still believes we need this type of outside-the-box thinking to tackle the property tax burden," said Brendan Gilfillan, a spokesman.
School boards ignore idea on merging county districts
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
BY TOM HESTER
Star-Ledger Staff
The New Jersey Association of School Administrators and the New Jersey School Boards Association yesterday delivered a five-page letter to Smith (D-Middlesex) and the members of the Joint Commit tee on Government Consolidation and Shared Services, which he co- chairs, and Gov. Jon Corzine.
In the letter, they say they want the Legislature to encourage voluntary school district mergers with state aid, but make no reference to Smith's idea of 21 countywide districts. The organizations also op pose any effort to mandate consolidation.
"To encourage school district consolidation, the Legislature must provide incentives to enable communities to study the educational and financial impact of mergers," school administrators director Barry J. Galasso and school boards director Edwina M. Lee wrote.
The school administrators and school boards are expected to play strong roles in the behind-the- scenes lobbying that will pick up after the Nov. 15 deadline that legislative leaders have set for Smith's committee and three other special panels considering property tax relief to offer proposals.
Frank Belluscio, a spokesman for the School Boards Association, said yesterday school district consolidation has to be explored "on a case-by-case basis."
"One reason for the letter: We want to make the legislators aware of the land mine that they need to remove if they are serious about making school district consolidation a property tax reform strategy -- namely, school consolidation will increase property taxes in many places," Belluscio said.
He said merging districts could cause property taxes in one or more of the communities to go up.
"That is what has stopped school district mergers in the past," Belluscio said. "If the legislators resolved that problem, perhaps by funds to offset the property tax shift, we would see more voluntary regionalization."
Smith said he expects opposi tion to his developing proposal to have one district for each of the 21 counties.
"That is to be expected, that stuff happens," he said. "But 617 school districts, over 600 administrators, 600 superintendents, 600 business administrators, you can't justify that. A case-by-case basis means nothing will happen."
Smith said he envisions the creation of countywide districts as a referendum on the 2007 ballot. Vot ers would be asked to approve the creation of an administrative school district that would handle purchasing, transportation, human resources, curriculum.
"I'm also against mandating consolidation," Smith said. "We need the consent of the governed. People have to decide how much government they want and what they are willing to pay for it."
Smith said existing local districts would maintain their identity and no student or principal would be removed from a district.
"You would still have a supervi sor but no other bureaucracy below that," he said. "All things that save money would move to the county level. The question would also give a range of the tax savings people could expect."
The school boards, school administrators and other education lobbying groups are scheduled to go one-on-one with Smith and his committee next Wednesday.
School-building bottom line tops $6 billion
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL
Star-Ledger Staff
The tab for New Jersey's ongoing school construction program pushed past $6 billion yesterday, as state officials endorsed plans to borrow another $600 million to bankroll the construction program through early next year.
The plan to issue two sets of bonds, one worth $500 million and the other worth $100 million, was approved during the regular monthly meeting of the state Economic Development Authority, the parent agency of the Schools Construction Corp.
The deal will bring the total bor rowed for the schools program to $6.075 billion. Repaying the bonds already issued for the controversial program is scheduled to cost taxpayers about $400 million a year for the next 20 years. The new debt will add about $45 million a year to that total.
When lawmakers set up the school program in 2000, they authorized it to borrow up to $8.6 billion. Through August, a total of $5 billion had actually been expended, and the balance of the $8.6 billion authorization had been earmarked for 59 specific projects.
Last month, a special panel recommended authorizing another $3.25 billion in borrowing to bank roll the construction program for at least two more years.
Dunstan McNichol covers state government issues. He may be reached at dmcnichol@starled ger.com or (609) 989-0341.
Top school officials' salaries listed
Average pay for 1,500 administrative positions: More than $121,000
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
BY JOHN MOONEY
Star-Ledger Staff
From the
State officials said they were providing the previously available data as a way to better inform the public on the contentious issue of school administrative costs.
The release follows a scathing report in March by the State Commission of Investigation on administrators' sometimes-excessive pay and perks.
"We must recognize the valuable role superintendents play as the district's educational leaders, and their salaries should be reflective of that role," acting Education Commissioner Lucille Davy said in releasing the data.
"But the public should still have ready access to that information," she said in the statement. "This new posting is the first step in an effort to increase the transparency of compensation packages."
The data are limited to superintendents, assistant superintendents and business administrators, and provide no names of the officials, even though they are available through other public data bases.
The report also does not include the compensation packages beyond the salaries that the SCI report cited. State officials said that information is now being collected for future releases.
Leading the list was Newark Superintendent Marion Bolden, heading the state's largest district and last year pulling down a $250,700 salary. She was followed by Toms River Superintendent Michael Ritacco and
At the bottom was Sheila Thorpe, listed as a part-time administrator at the
The average of all 1,518 positions listed was $121,397.
The head of the state superintendents association criticized the release, saying it should go beyond just the top positions and other wise misrepresents school spend ing at a time when their finances are being widely debated.
"This distorts the public perception of how we spend $20 billion on education in this state," said Barry Galasso, director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators. "It's an isolated view and says to people, 'If you are un happy with your taxes, here's the people responsible.'
"It's a discredit to the great work of some great people throughout the state," he said.
Others said it was a worthy start in opening the debate over what should be spent on school leadership. Assembly Speaker Jo seph Roberts (D-Camden) has pressed for legislation that would give the state oversight of superintendents' pay as a way to save taxpayers money.
"The Department of Education has given property taxpayers the keys to unlocking one of the mysteries of the local school budget," Robert said in a statement. "Residents have a right to know the salaries paid to superintendents and other top administrators."
Others hoped the state would next provide guidance on how much administrators should be paid.
"It may be appropriate to pay at these levels, but how does the public measure that?" said David Sciarra, director of the
Judge tells state to hand over secretive school-funding study
Saturday, October 07, 2006
BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL
Star-Ledger Staff
State education officials, who have kept under wraps estimates of what it should cost to educate
In a hearing punctuated by sharp criticism of the Department of Education's handling of a consultant's report on school costs, Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg ordered the state to let attorneys from the
She questioned Michael Walters, the assistant attorney general representing the state in the hearing, on the
"How does somebody like the plaintiff participate effectively in the process without having this information?" Feinberg said. "If they don't have the information available to effectively advocate, they are at a tremendous disadvantage."
While the
But David Sciarra, the center's executive director, said the judge's ruling should serve notice that the state must be more open in developing the formula that will determine how homeowners and state taxpayers split the $20 billion tab for education.
"This has to be about a vigorous, open debate on what it costs to educate our kids," Sciarra said. "It would be unsound to develop a formula as it has been done in the old way -- in the back room, in secret and based on what politicians are willing to spend."
Feinberg noted that one chart withheld by the state shows a district-by-district comparison of what each of the state's 616 school systems currently spends and what the consultant concluded an adequate education should cost.
The consultant, John Augenblick of
Richard Rosenberg, a former assistant state education commissioner who worked with Augenblick when he did the analysis, has said in recent interviews it indicated the total state and local cost of public schools should be about $1 billion more than the $20 billion currently spent.
The state currently provides $7 billion of that amount. Lawmakers say they are close to wrapping up work on the new formula for distributing state aid, but have not attempted to determine how much more their new proposals would cost.
"It's very, very premature to say we have a potential draft," said Sen. John Adler (D-Camden), co-chair of the committee devising a new funding formula.
Lawmakers and officials of the Corzine administration are still determining how much extra funding should be allocated to offset poverty or social disadvantages and to what extent local incomes or property values would be used to offset state aid, Adler said.
Assemblyman Herb Conaway (D-Burlington), co-chair of the school funding committee, said it would be confusing to start generating cost estimates before a final formula has been developed.
"Having different sets of numbers out there is likely to cause more problems than it solves," he said. "It's much better in terms of public support that we work from one set of numbers at the end of the process."
Dunstan McNichol covers state government issues. He may be reached at dmcnichol@starledger.com or (609) 989-0341.
