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by Jim O'Neill, Superintendent of the School district of the Chathams
TESTIMOMY – SENATE BUDGET COMMITTEE – APRIL 13, 2010 Jim O’Neill, Superintendent of Schools School District of the Chathams
Chairman Sarlo, Vice Chairman Stack, Senators Beach, Bucco, Buono, Cunningham, Doherty, O’Toole, Oroho, Pennacchio, Ruiz, Smith, VanDrew; Thank you for the opportunity to address the Committee today. I will be brief and I will give the clerk a copy of my comments; I will also be glad to answer any questions if that would be helpful. • Everyone understands that Governor Christie inherited a financial crisis and I don’t doubt that anydecisions he made would alienate some people, institutions and special interest groups • Many of us sympathize with the Governor’s frustration with NJEA • However: o Many of us do not understand the philosophy, the rationale or even the math of what the Governor has offered to solve New Jersey’s fiscal problems o What gains in reduced spending through layoffs by school districts will be offset by higher unemployment claims? What really will be gained? Saved? • Everyone understands that if you restrict the tax levy you will make it more difficult for the suburban schools because most of their money comes from property tax dollars • Everyone understands that if you take more aid you will hurt the ‘Abbotts’ and more economically disadvantaged communities because their dollars come from state aid. • But to take up to 100% of the aid from districts that have sent hundreds of millions of dollars through income taxes which allow the state to send hundreds of millions of dollars to less fortunate communities seems unfair on the face of it and raises a question about the state fulfilling the constitutional mandate of Thorough and Efficient • It should also be evident to everyone that when the state took money from districts that cover 85-95% of the cost of running the schools you did not take state money, you took local money, at least 85-95% of it was local property tax money • Trenton frequently complains about how little NJ gets back from the Federal Government; many suburban towns are now looking at getting pennies or even zero back from Trenton • The citizens of my community could say that the state has decided to limit how much they can spend on their own children where 96% or more attend to top colleges and were we spend $2,000 less per student than the state average while at the same time taking the 55-60 million dollars they pay in income taxes and send it to another district where they spend @$27,000 per student or twice the state average and about two and a half times what we spend. • One of the things that Governor Corzine was given credit for by many educators and legislators was creating the new formula. It passed the Supreme Court test but we have now abandoned it. The commissioner indicates they ran the formula but could not fund it. Why wasn’t that formula used as a tool to reduce aid? • Perhaps my greatest concern with the way the school aid issue was dealt with is the fact that all were treated the same o High performing/low performing o Growing enrollment/declining enrollment o Spending under the state average/spending thousands over the state average o There is no indication that there was any recognition if the district accomplished the state’s goal: A school district that is both efficient and effective And the Governor’s rhetoric continues to perpetuate the myth that there are not well run school districts in New Jersey • After the state took 80-100% of the aid from many districts we embarked on the challenging task of seeking contractual concessions to help offset the loss of state aid. A few districts were successful; more with administrators than with teachers; some only took a freeze for part of the year. Many boards engaged their teachers association in earnest discussions to no avail. Yesterday the Governor encouraged citizens to defeat all budgets where teachers did not agree to a freeze. What purpose will this serve? Districts will cut more staff and teach the NJEA a lesson? Or that the Governor and the legislature, despite public comments to the contrary, do not care about public education and choose to punish school children who have no decision making power but will be penalized because two groups of adults cannot work out their differences. • Where does the obligation that the state has to our most vulnerable citizens temper the actions of those in decision making positions? • The Governor talks a lot about what is right. On many things I agree with him but I have never believed that the end justify the means and in this case a relentless pursuit of the end will result in children being victimized by those elected to ensure their safety and well being. • It is my contention and firm belief that one of the few things that continue to bring people to New Jersey while others leave the state are the abundance of excellent schools. When NJ schools become mediocre there will be one more reason for them not to relocate to NJ • The effort to resolve the state’s fiscal problems may well need drastic measures but the extent of the cuts to many districts were by any standard, excessive and we were forced to make those decisions in a 4 day window of time. You have months to resolve your budget issues, suppose you only had one week? The decisions would necessarily suffer from the expedited time frame. • We were told there would be tools to allow us to deal with these cuts in aid, we are told the tools are coming but tools that do not exist cannot be used. Pass some of the tools and by the way, I think the tools are great, I contributed to that list of tools and think they will be successful but they do not [yet] exist and therefore are of no help • I understand that there is frustration with property taxes in New Jersey but I don’t believe reasonable people think that decimating school budgets is a well thought out answer to the problem. It may be an outlet for frustration but it is not a long term solution. Whether you like school budgets or not, school districts followed the laws as they existed at the time. This year, like every other year, school budgets are the result of approval by the County Superintendent and the voters. • I know there has been controversy over the so called millionaire’s tax, the Governor is opposed but many members of the legislature are supportive. I hope someone is debating the idea of taking only half of the $800 million this year and putting that tax in at half the rate. It would at least give us time to consider and monitor the consequences of our decisions and to help the Commissioner and the Governor understand the impact of these cuts before it is too late. • You have a difficult task but this is an important issue. There are 1.2 million students in public schools in NJ. Their well being deserves your best effort and doing what is right for them should not be squashed because of a tangential battle with the NJEA. • If I was allowed one sidebar comment it would be that even if the Commissioner and the Governor are fans of Charter schools, now that they have the responsibility for public schools they should focus their energy on fixing those schools rather than promoting solutions that drain more money from those schools.
