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'School budgets go to voters Tuesday amid controversy; North Brunswick, Roselle Park, Montclair exemplify clash'
"North Brunswick will scale back its full-day kindergarten to half-day to deal with the state funding cuts. Slash the sports teams and clubs? Maybe eliminate full-day kindergarten? What about lopping off some librarians and teachers? Or perhaps it’s time to raise property taxes?..."
'Compromise is needed on New Jersey budget: Gov. Chris Christie should meet Democrats half-way on income tax surcharge' - Star-Ledger Editorial
School budgets go to voters Tuesday amid controversy; North Brunswick, Roselle Park, Montclair exemplify clash
April 18, 2010, 7:03AM
North Brunswick will scale back its full-day kindergarten to half-day to deal with the state funding cuts. Slash the sports teams and clubs?
Maybe eliminate full-day kindergarten?
What about lopping off some librarians and teachers?
Or perhaps it’s time to raise property taxes?
How bad has it been across New Jersey this spring as school board members scramble to cope with unprecedented cuts in state aid?
“We have not seen anything like this,” said Karen Hirschoff, a retired teacher who is North Brunswick’s school board vice president. “You have to ask yourself, what else can we cut? There’s not much.”
Previous coverage:
• State aid reductions force N.J. school boards to cut staffs, including teachers
• N.J. school boards weigh tough options after Gov. Christie's budget cuts
• N.J. school board group asks Gov. Christie to suspend budget elections in wake of state aid cuts
• Gov. Chris Christie's proposed public school aid cuts, by district
• N.J. Gov. Chris Christie calls for teachers, school workers to accept wage freeze to prevent layoffs
• N.J. school district officials say Gov. Chris Christie budget cuts will force program, staff cuts
But as dramatic as some of those scenarios are, things could get worse. On Tuesday, New Jersey residents in 539 districts will vote on school budgets and elect board of education members. If large numbers of budgets are defeated, local governing bodies may have to cut even further.
Typically about 70 percent of districts see their budgets pass. But this is not a typical year — not after Gov. Chris Christie called for slashing the funding for schools by $820 million next year.
Under the proposed state budget Christie unveiled last month, each district would lose state aid equal to up to 5 percent of its total budget. On top of that, the governor urged voters to reject budgets in communities where teachers have not agreed to a one-year wage freeze, which is the majority of districts statewide.
The cuts, the rhetoric and the governor’s clash with the New Jersey Education Association have accomplished the once-unimaginable: They are making people pay attention to their school board elections.
To better understand the issues tearing apart towns ahead of the election, The Star-Ledger has focused coverage on three very different school districts: Roselle Park, North Brunswick and Montclair.
On one side are critics like Jerry Cantrell, president of the New Jersey Taxpayers Association, who calls it ridiculous that districts cannot, “one year out of a decade, maintain the line on an increase in their budgets.”
On the other are educators like Roselle Park superintendent Patrick Spagnoletti, who says the governor’s slashing has “the ability to decimate a district.”
This is a story of the tug-of-war playing out in three towns.
ROSELLE PARK
Facing the loss of $1.4 million in state aid, the Roselle Park school board started with the goals of preserving teaching positions and keeping average elementary class size at 25 students, Spagnoletti said.
“What is education about in Roselle Park? Hands down, the board decided it is the individual classroom teachers. They really know the students and are able to provide them with individualized instruction,” he said. “Working backward, those things that were more removed from direct instruction became less essential.”
Middle school sports were eliminated. Town sports programs for students in grades K-8 could help fill the gap, Spagnoletti said.
Some 17 clubs were slashed at the middle and high schools — but not National Honor Society or student government.
Several administrative jobs have been axed, as have many aides that provide classroom and basic-skills help.
That’s all before the district slashed nearly two dozen teaching and student-support positions. Those included art, music, social studies, business, math and English teachers, four elementary teaching positions, social workers, a school psychologist and a librarian.
“Do I think that a business teacher is any less valuable than a math or science teacher? Absolutely not,” Spagnoletti said. “But math and language arts are the areas we are tested in and judged in. We used that if we had to come up with a pecking order.”
In all, 58 jobs will be lost, or 18 percent of the district work force, Spagnoletti said. At the same time, the amount of money the district will raise in taxes is increasing 3.1 percent. The total proposed operating budget is $29.2 million.
In the small, working-class district where 27 percent of the 2,014 students receive free or reduced-price lunches, residents were “devastated,” said Linda Uhrig, mother of a high school student.
“We are losing a lot of beloved teachers and paraprofessionals,” she said. “Everybody is very upset.”
The district has asked the teachers union to consider a wage freeze.
Roselle Park Education Association president Kathy MacDonald said, “We do want to work with them.
“Freezing salaries is not something that you can look at lightly. It has implications that affect people for many years. We’re considering everything.”
NORTH BRUNSWICK
North Brunswick will scale back its full-day kindergarten to half-day to deal with the state funding cuts.
Two years ago the North Brunswick Township School District began full-day kindergarten, which offers children in the diverse community the chance for individualized learning. Kids work on writing at their own level, important in a district where kids begin school with a wide range of preparedness. They also study science and social studies; research topics such as the ocean; and have lunch at school, going through the lunch line, learning socialization skills, and sitting down to open their own milk.
Debbie Druker’s kindergartners were working hard in her brightly painted classroom one recent morning, writing in literacy centers, playing a game with “sight word” cards, then filing their morning’s work and settling down for snack.
“I like when it’s pizza day!” said Nicole Andino, 6, a student in Druker’s class at Parsons Elementary School.
As a result of a $4.1 million cut in state aid to North Brunswick, the school board planned to do away with the full-day kindergarten program. Maximum class size for kindergarten, 22, would grow to 25, and the day would be cut in half, to save about $650,000. Some teachers’ jobs would be lost.
School officials spent nights and several Saturdays working to come up with cuts. “You take a look at all your non-mandated programs,” superintendent Brian Zychowski said.
But at 4:30 a.m. Friday, the North Brunswick board and teachers union struck a tentative three-year agreement that includes a one-year wage freeze, saving the district an expected $1.7 million.
The total proposed budget is $77.8 million. If it passes Tuesday, Zychowski said, full-day kindergarten will be saved.
Thirty jobs will still probably be lost, Zychowski said, down from the 100 positions expected to be cut without the wage freeze. Middle school and freshman high school sports may still be on the chopping block. The tax levy will still go up 4.6 percent.
“Returning teachers back to the classroom is the priority,” Zychowski said.
North Brunswick is a middle-income district, a mix of blue- and white-collar families with a growing immigrant population, where 33 percent of roughly 6,000 students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.
Zychowski said North Brunswick’s finances are considered both “under-adequate” and underfunded. Per-pupil spending is below what the state considers adequate, a result of holding taxes low for years, then seeing five of six recent budgets defeated.
At the same time, he said, the district is underfunded because while its demographics were changing — more students with special needs were moving in — state aid was flat for about five years.
Last year the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld a new school-funding formula that would address that, sending more money to districts with special-needs students, but the state lacks the money to fully fund it.
Zychowski, who served on Christie’s transition team, said he was “very happy” with the tentative settlement and wage freeze. “I think our staff members understood every dollar we could save was in that budget. I appreciate their commitment,” he said. “I think Governor Christie’s message — that he inherited financial distress in New Jersey — I think North Brunswick staff heard that message and worked with the board to save as much of the educational integrity and jobs as possible.”
North Brunswick Township Education Association president Martha Landy said the union agreed for the students’ sake. “This is our community, and we want to preserve the incredibly high value of North Brunswick schools,” she said. “The bottom line is, we looked at what was best for our kids and did what was best for our kids.”
MONTCLAIR
On a recent Sunday, 14-year-old Maera Onyango and more than a dozen other Montclair High School students hunkered down at the public library, studying chemistry, math and world literature.
Every Sunday, several Montclair teachers and students gather there for IMANI study groups, a tutoring program for struggling students. Onyango said she has seen results. Her grades have marched from C’s to solid B territory.
But students and teachers fear the program will be severely cut next year, one of several community partnerships slashed or deeply reduced as the district copes with a loss of $5.4 million in state aid.
“It’s a bad idea,” mathematics teacher Scott Feinstein said of cutting funding to the tutoring program. “You definitely have people coming here that want to learn.”
Montclair schools also are losing 82½ positions, eliminating the elementary world language program and reducing the number of elementary student assistance counselors.
Montclair is a wealthy community, but that label can be deceiving: Some 18 percent of its 6,600 students receive free and reduced-cost lunches. Montclair residents do not vote on their school budget. The district has an appointed board that approved the spending plan earlier this month.
The Montclair teachers union agreed to a salary freeze for top earners. That, combined with wage freezes for administrators and other central office staff, saved the district about $1 million, Montclair superintendent Frank Alvarez said, out of a proposed budget of $107.1 million.
The district still had to increase its tax levy by about 4.4 percent.
“We’re a district that takes great pride in doing things and providing services that are above and beyond what is expected of us,” Alvarez said. Losing “things like the world language or after-school program are not things we are happy about.”
In deciding what to reduce or eliminate, he said, the district focused on its goals, including: supporting magnet schools; promoting school integration; providing secure schools; meeting state mandates; and maintaining transportation for K-8 students who live more than a mile from school.
Montclair looked for programs that would “feel the impact the least,” Alvarez said. “We believe through creative solutions and volunteer efforts, we can make up for those programs.”
Montclair High School will lose more than a dozen jobs, including seven content supervisors, six teachers and two ROTC instructors.
The school is still working to determine which positions will be lost and what that will mean for classes next year. High school principal James Earle predicted some classes with smaller enrollments may not be offered, or the district will look to partner with neighboring districts or colleges to provide those courses.
“This budget forces us to say something is more important than another,” Earle said. “In our mind, it’s all important.”
By Kristen Alloway/Staff Writer and Jeanette Rundquist /Staff Writer
Compromise is needed on New Jersey budget: Gov. Chris Christie should meet Democrats half-way on income tax surcharge
By Star-Ledger Editorial Board/The Star-Led...
April 18, 2010, 6:00AM
Gov. Chris Christie often stresses the need for shared sacrifice during this fiscal emergency. But he has proposed a budget that fails to deliver it.
It pounds low-income families mercilessly, while making religion of the need to lower tax rates on the state’s wealthiest families.
That error is compounded by the governor’s inflexibility. He refuses to consider compromise on that central tax issue, even as Democrats signal their willingness to make a deal.
This is just wrong. Since his election the governor has acted as though the people of this state entrusted their future to him alone. He seems to forget that voters also elected Democrats to control the Legislature, an equal branch of government.
Christie is a remarkable talent as a communicator. He has put his finger on the state’s central problem, its uncontrolled spending. By confronting public workers, he is moving to break the stranglehold of the state’s most powerful special interest group. He has created a climate where structural reforms are within reach.
We are rooting for his success.
But he has not made a convincing case in favor of reducing income tax rates for the wealthy. He claims it is the key to reviving the state’s economy, but the record on that piece of Republican dogma is mixed, at both the state and national level.
Refusing to compromise threatens to poison relations with the Legislature as well, putting the governor’s larger reform agenda at risk. He can’t expect Democrats to give him everything he wants, and then give them nothing in return. He’s not a prosecutor anymore. He’s a politician.
* * *
The compromise here is obvious: Split the differences down the middle.
A half-sized surtax on the wealthy for 2010 would raise roughly $350 million to $400 million, money that could be used to restore the most damaging cuts in spending.
Neither side would get all it wants. But Democrats could protect low-income families and seniors from the worst of it, while adding some money to public education. And Christie could ensure that the wealthy pay lower taxes in 2010 than they paid in 2009.
The worst of Christie’s spending cuts land squarely on low-income families. The governor wants to take $45 million from working poor families by reducing the earned income tax credit, a move that has to be reversed. This program benefits only those who work, and was a favorite of President Reagan, who expanded it on his watch.
The next priority should be health care. The governor’s cuts to Family Care will leave thousands of working poor families without coverage and lead to the loss of significant federal matching funds.
Finally, some of the cuts to low-income seniors could be restored. Cutting prescription drug subsidies for this group is short-sighted. And senior property tax programs could be partially restored if they are means tested to limit the cost.
* * *
As for public education, any money that’s restored must have strings attached so that it goes only to districts where teachers make concessions on salary and benefits.
Most teacher union locals have refused to make concessions that would help schools weather this crisis, and some boards have not even asked. To give these districts extra aid would reward their bad behavior.
The governor has nibbled at the edges of this approach by offering districts small rewards in return for salary concessions. In Montclair, for example, employees made concessions worth nearly $1 million. The district will get about $70,000 as a reward.
What if that reward were $1 million instead, or even $2 million? That would give teachers more incentive to offer concessions, since more jobs could be saved. And it would rally school boards and voters to press teachers over the issue.
With this approach, schools could reduce planned layoffs and property tax increases. If the unions make concessions, the money could be delivered in time for the next school year.
* * *
This is a rare political moment in New Jersey when structural reform is within our grasp. The governor is pressing for a 2.5 percent cap on property taxes, and on labor costs. He wants to reform collective bargaining rules so that taxpayers have a fair chance. He wants another round of pension reform.
Democrats have new leaders who support the thrust of this, and stand ready to compromise on the surtax. If the governor spurns their overtures, he will poison relations and endanger his whole reform agenda.
Good politicians know when to fight and when to compromise. Soon, we’ll find out whethere Christie is one of them.
