"It reminds us of how it was before the schools construction act, when 239 of the non-Abbott districts did not qualify for aid," she said...."

More aid is needed for building of schools

New Jersey's school construction program needs an infusion of $3.25 billion to address a backlog of projects built up over the past two years during an overhaul of the program, a task force analyzing the school building program told Gov. Jon Corzine yesterday.

The report also recommends scrapping the grants that had been awarded to suburban school projects in favor of potentially less generous subsidies for some of their borrowing costs. And it calls for replacing the "first-come, first-served" policy that governed the program's first years with a set of standards to identify the most urgently needed schools, based on criteria such as overcrowding.

The additional funding would bring the total allocated to the school building program to $11.85 billion. "This level of funding is designed to allow the program to move forward in a logically sequenced manner, and address the most pressing needs of the next few years," the governor's Interagency Working Group said in its 30-page report to Corzine.

Lawmakers did not embrace the call for new funding.

"The first problem we have to face is changing the inflating cost of property taxes," said Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) "After that, we can focus in on this."

Of the new money, $2.5 billion would go to the 31 so-called Abbott districts, where the state is under orders from the state Supreme Court to pay the full cost of refurbishing hundreds of outmoded, overcrowded and decrepit public school buildings.

The other $750 million would help pay for schools in the state's other school districts, under a wealth-based formula that would replace the state's current policy of supporting at least 40 percent of every community's building costs.

Unless the Legislature acts quickly on the proposals, the task force said, the SCC will have to decide which of the 59 school projects in Abbott districts approved for construction in July 2005 will have to be suspended.

"This report is an important step in ensuring that our education system has the necessary infrastructure to provide our children with a first-rate education," Corzine said in a statement. He plans to seek legislation for the additional funds in conjunction with bills to enact the other reforms the task force suggested, a spokesman said.

For the nearly 600 school districts not covered by the construction mandate in the Supreme Court's Abbott vs. Burke order, the report recommends scrapping guaranteed grants that have covered at least 40 percent of a community's construction costs.

Instead, the report said, suburban communities should get state aid for debt payments that would be paid out over decades.

"Put simply, this report proposes seizing money from suburban taxpayers and then telling them to fund their own school projects while using their money to build schools in cities and towns where the taxpayers are not asked to contribute a dime," said Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Morris), who said he will urge all Republicans to vote against new school funding.

Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, which represents hundreds of the non-Abbott communities, said the task force's recommendations raise concerns.

"It reminds us of how it was before the schools construction act, when 239 of the non-Abbott districts did not qualify for aid," she said.

The Schools Construction Corp. was set up in 2002 to manage a court-ordered overhaul of school buildings in 31 of the state's neediest school districts, the so-called Abbott districts, and to manage $2.5 billion in grants to middle income and wealthier communities.

Last year, the corporation announced it had used up the first $8.6 billion lawmakers authorized it to spend, forcing officials to suspend work on 97 projects, abandon millions of dollars worth of land that had been assembled for suspended projects and leave hundreds of school projects in the planning stages.

Subsequently, a series of reviews of the SCC found widespread mismanagement, excessive professional fees and evidence of waste and fraud in the school building program.

Yesterday, officials of the corporation said those problems had been addressed through a series of ongoing reforms.

"It's gone from an agency that was clearly broken to one that today understands its mission and has a system in place to properly execute the mission we are giving to the agency," said Barry Zubrow, the former Goldman Sachs executive Corzine appointed to be chairman of the corporation earlier this year.

The new funding would allow the state to complete 59 construction projects identified for funding in July 2005, to resume work on some of the 97 projects suspended for lack of funds last year and to cover $60 million to $80 million in emergency repairs as they are identified, the report says.

Dunstan McNichol covers state government issues. He may be reached at dmcnichol@starledger.com or (609) 989-0341.