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Nj.com - Christie recruits former N.J. attorney general, Supreme Court justice to defend cutbacks in school funding TRENTON — Peter Verniero, the former New Jersey attorney general and Supreme Court justice, has been recruited to Gov. Chris Christie’s legal team defending state cutbacks to school funding, the Attorney General’s Office announced today.
njspotlight.com - Abbott v. Burke: Not Simply About Poor, Inner-City School Districts..."In the first day budget hearings before the legislature yesterday, the topic of the pending Abbott decision wasn’t far from anyone minds. The chief budget watcher with the state’s Office of Legislative Services (OLS), the legislature’s non-partisan staff, listed the pending decision as a wild card in the deliberations ahead. "It now appears likely that the New Jersey Supreme Court will decide the most recent iteration of the school funding case before the FY12 budget is adopted, and their decision could certainly be consequential," said David Rosen, the OLS's budget and finance officer.
State Street Wire - Verniero named special counsel as Christie administration battles education funding findings in court... "A former state attorney general who also served on the state Supreme Court will join the Christie administration’s continuing battle over the way it funds education..."
Nj.com - Christie recruits former N.J. attorney general, Supreme Court justice to defend cutbacks in school funding
Published: Monday, March 28, 2011, 8:25 PM Updated: Tuesday, March 29, 2011, 5:47 AM
TRENTON — Peter Verniero, the former New Jersey attorney general and Supreme Court justice, has been recruited to Gov. Chris Christie’s legal team defending state cutbacks to school funding, the Attorney General’s Office announced today.
The move by the Christie administration follows a report last week by Superior Court Judge Peter Doyne, who said the governor’s cuts in state aid for schools violated New Jersey’s mandate to provide "a thorough and efficient" education.
That set the stage for a new battle in the landmark Abbott v. Burke case that has poured billions of dollars to poor school districts over the last decades.
"Abbott is a bit of an unusual case, given it’s a 40-year lawsuit," said Paul Loriquet, spokesman for Attorney General Paula Dow. "Peter Verniero is a natural person for this assignment. He has argued two prior Abbott cases before the Supreme Court, is very familiar with this subject, and will work well with the lawyers at the Attorney General’s office who remain heavily involved with the case."
Loriquet said Verniero is offering his services free of charge but that other lawyers from his firm, Sills, Cummis and Gross, will help out at an hourly rate. Verniero is expected to argue the case before the high court, Loriquet added.
"I look forward to working with the Attorney General’s Office in presenting the State’s position," Verniero said.
The Supreme Court commissioned Doyne’s report after the Education Law Center, a Newark-based advocacy group, filed a challenge to Christie’s more than $820 million in cuts to state aid for schools last year. Christie’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year restores $250 million in state funds. The governor has said it’s unrealistic to expect the same level of state aid amid dire economic conditions.
Verniero argued the Abbott case while he was attorney general from 1996 to 1999. He went on to serve on the Supreme Court until 2004.
"I don’t remember in detail the quality of the argument," said Paul Tractenberg, a Rutgers University law professor and a founder of the Education Law Center. "I don’t think it was a memorable argument but as a justice he had a reputation of being smart and confident and I assume it’s the same as a lawyer." He added: "I dont know if it’s his name and not his experience they sought."
The parties have until mid-April to file briefs in response to Doyne’s report, and the court can schedule another round of oral arguments.
Chris Megerian contributed to this report.
njspotlight.com - Abbott v. Burke: Not Simply About Poor, Inner-City School Districts
The State Supreme Court's fact-finding report lists 205 underfunded school districts -- both urban and suburban -- far more than the so-called Abbott 31
By John Mooney, March 29 in Education |1 Comment
"Below adequacy." It's not a pleasant phrase, but it could prove to be a critical one as the state Supreme Court weighs what to do next in New Jersey’s ongoing debate over the Abbott v. Burke school funding case.
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That's because more than 200 school districts have been found by the court’s latest fact-finding hearings to be spending less than what the state's school funding formula deems as "adequate."
Adequacy is defined through a complex formula used in the state’s School Funding Reform Act (SFRA). It factors in the cost of educating a child with various needs, starting at just below $10,000 for a general education elementary school student and going up with age and requirements.
And the list of 205 districts is not just poor ones, the 31 so-called Abbott districts, but a mix across the state, including suburbs like Ridgefield, Toms River and Middletown. Actually, only about a third are high-poverty districts.
Now those districts -- spending some $1.1 billion less than needed to be found adequate -- could very well be Exhibit A in the next phase before the court, with the plaintiffs saying the 205 will be at the core of their argument for a remedy to the funding imbalance.
Implementing the Formula
"Assuming the court adopts [the fact-finding] report, we’ll be pushing for the prospective implementation of the formula in a manner that provides districts with the benefits that the formula calls for," said David Sciarra, director of the Education Law Center, the Newark group that has led the Abbott litigation.
"And that means a heavy focus on those lower-spending, below-adequacy districts," he said.
Moving up the timetable, the court set a new deadline of April 7 to receive legal briefs from both sides as it decides on what remedy it will take. The options are many, from ordering additional funding -- be it immediate or phased in, for some districts or all -- or taking a different path altogether, given the state’s fiscal crisis.
It’s no small issue, either, looming large over schools statewide and the state’s budget deliberations, just now underway.
In the wake of a fact-finding report that largely backed his argument word for word, Sciarra yesterday gave some other early hints of his upcoming strategy. In an analysis of how much each of the 205 districts fall under the adequacy levels, he stressed the cross-section of urban and suburban districts should put to rest that this is just about poor inner-city schools.
"It really underscores the misleading characterization of what we’re involved in," he said. "It’s no longer just Abbotts and non-Abbotts."
He also said the fact-finding report from Judge Peter Doyne agreed with the premise that the state’s school funding formula was central to determining what schools need to meet the constitutional guarantee to a "thorough and efficient" education, the primary question facing the high court.
"It’s the cost of providing the core curriculum content standards," said Sciarra. "And one of primary aims of the SFRA was to move those districts spending below up to adequacy over three years."
"What Judge Doyne addressed and what the court will be focused on is that formula," he said. "The formula matters."
In an interesting twist, the Christie administration said yesterday that it would bring in former Supreme Court justice Peter Verniero to help argue the case. Verniero is also a former attorney general who presented the state’s Abbott argument before the same court in 1996, on behalf of then Gov. Christine Whitman.
In the first day budget hearings before the legislature yesterday, the topic of the pending Abbott decision wasn’t far from anyone minds. The chief budget watcher with the state’s Office of Legislative Services (OLS), the legislature’s non-partisan staff, listed the pending decision as a wild card in the deliberations ahead.
"It now appears likely that the New Jersey Supreme Court will decide the most recent iteration of the school funding case before the FY12 budget is adopted, and their decision could certainly be consequential," said David Rosen, the OLS's budget and finance officer.
Comments on this story …
....From Judge Doyne's Remand Report - Footnotes: pp 5 & 6
4 At the initial hearing before this court conducted on January 18, 2011, plaintiffs’ longstanding counsel, David G. Sciarra, Esq., acknowledged he only represented the interests of the plaintiff class; that is, students in the former Abbott districts. Accordingly, of the 1,366,271 students in the State – 282,417, or 20.67 percent, are students in former Abbott districts, leaving the remainder 79.33% of students residing in non-Abbott districts unrepresented. This is as troubling now as it was in the prior remand. Abbott XX, supra, 199 N.J. at 240 (“It is noted the interests of students in all districts other than the Abbott districts are not concretely before the court.”). For simplicity, this report will continue to reference these districts as the “Abbott districts,” or the “former Abbott districts.”
5
5 It is worth noting this remand addresses the constitutional rights of all New Jersey school children, rather than only the school children who resided in the “Abbott districts,” as was the case in the prior remand. It does, though, appear the plaintiffs’ application focused primarily upon the children in the Abbott districts.
....From Supreme Court's SFRA decision May 2009: "It is, though, noteworthy that no amicus before this court sought to represent the vast majority of school children in New Jersey. The restriction that befell the Supreme Court is equally applicable here. As such, the court’s focus must be solely upon the constitutionality of SFRA as it applies to the students in the Abbott districts. That said, to intelligently analyze and review SFRA, the court is compelled to also observe the full panoply of rights and expectations of all our students."
It is not clear to whom - what students and/or districts - a Court decision will apply, given precedence and jurisdiction issues stated above. Can the Court determine mid-stream who has standing after the lines of plaintiff representation are still, and have been, delineated for so many years? The Court's own May 2009 states that its SFRA contsitutionality decision had to be restricted to the Abbotts. If their next decision extends beyond Abbott, would that mean that any district or student will have standing before the Supreme Court in potential school funding consitutional matters? The public and the legislature deserve clarity on this before the Court renders a decision.
Posted by qualityed on March 29 at 12:44 PM
State Street Wire - Verniero named special counsel as Christie administration battles education funding findings in court
By State Street Wire Staff | March 28th, 2011 5:38 p.m.
A former state attorney general who also served on the state Supreme Court will join the Christie administration’s continuing battle over the way it funds education.
The Attorney General’s Office announced today the retention of Peter G. Verniero as special counsel to assist in defending the state against a legal challenge over the adequacy of its education funding for fiscal year 2011.
Verniero is a partner at Sills Cummis & Gross, where he chairs the Appellate Practice Group, as well as the firm’s Corporate Internal Investigations Practice Group. Verniero served on the New Jersey Supreme Court for five years before joining the Newark-based law firm. He also served as New Jersey’s Attorney General between 1996 and 1999.
“I have full confidence in the legal team that we have assembled to prepare and present the State’s position to the Supreme Court,” Attorney General Paula T. Dow said in a release.
Last week a Special Master ruled that the administration’s formula for funding schools was inadequate and the appellate court ordered briefs commenting on the Special Master’s report from both parties by April 7, and reply briefs are due on April 14.
http://www.politickernj.com/46142/christie-we-w...
