affirms more school aid The state increase, the first since 2001, will be "enough to help," the Senate president said. Meanwhile, more districts joined together to push for additional money in the next budget. By Tom Hester Jr. Associated Press TRENTON - The leader of the state Senate said yesterday that New Jersey's public schools could expect to get "hundreds of millions of dollars" in increased state aid next school year to help control the nation's highest property taxes. With Gov. Corzine set to announce his budget plan tomorrow, Senate President Richard J. Codey said it would include the first school aid increase since 2001. He declined to specify the amount, but said it would be "enough to help." Codey (D., Essex) made increased school aid a priority as legislators worked in recent months to cut New Jersey's property taxes, which are twice the national average. "We're finally out of neutral," he said. "We're out of a parking position." Meanwhile, a bid to devise a new school-funding formula had proved unsuccessful. "We need a new one, but it's just we don't have the time right now to say convincingly and assuredly that we have the money for it," Codey said. "Hopefully, next year we will, and it will be a much larger increase. But I think school districts should be happy we're going upward." Word of increased aid came as school groups vowed a stronger effort to get the state to increase help. "It has been a deaf ear and a blind eye going into the sixth year now, and we are mad," said Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools. The coalition represents about 110 suburban districts, including some of the wealthiest in the state. Yesterday, it announced it was joining forces with the Association of Middle Income Districts, which represents about 40 low- and middle-income schools. The Corzine administration is forecasting a $2 billion budget shortfall. Several legislators said they expected the governor to increase school aid as much as 4 percent, or about $400 million, but the administration hasn't confirmed that. "Gov. Corzine remains committed to the goal of providing every child in this state with a thorough and efficient education," spokesman Anthony Coley said. "He will continue working with parents, teachers, legislators and others to make sure all of our children, regardless of zip code, receive the resources needed to be successful following graduation." A Rutgers University study estimated that schools were shorted $846 million by the state last school year. The state spends about $10 billion a year on public schools - about one-third of its budget - but they get more than half their funding from property taxes. Nationally, property taxes account for 43 percent of school funding on average. Corzine and legislators had hoped to devise a new plan to fund schools for the budget year that begins July 1, but the governor said the plan wasn't ready. He wants to put more emphasis on how many special-needs students each district has, rather than community wealth. Several lawmakers yesterday praised the combined effort by districts to advocate for new funding. Sen. Barbara Buono said she would advocate for dedicating all money raised from last year's sales-tax increase to property-tax relief. Voters have approved dedicating half the money. "What we have now in New Jersey is a dysfunctional system," said Buono (D., Middlesex). Sen. John Adler (D., Camden) called the lack of a new school-funding plan "a real show of disrespect to taxpayers." Assemblyman Joe Malone (R., Burlington) said property-tax relief wouldn't come until a new school-funding system was created. "It is about time that the suburban and rural school districts get up the political courage to make a statement that they will not tolerate this kind of lack of funding in the future," Malone said.