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Press of Atlantic City - N.J. bills bad for taxpayers, school officials say "..Several speakers at the hearing were upset that the bills were added to the agenda at the last minute and not available for review until Monday, though some managed to get copies Sunday. Even some committee members conceded that changes might be needed to the bills, and their final approval was not guaranteed."This is dangerous stuff, it really is," said Lynne Strickland, of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, who sent out an alert to members Sunday..."
Press of Atlantic City [see related article below "6-24-09 Supreme Court Decision"] - Few in N.J. affected by top court's ruling on special education
"Few New Jersey students are likely to benefit from Monday's U.S. Supreme Court decision that parents may be reimbursed for private school tuition for a child with disabilities, even if the child had never received services from the public school district..."
'Loch Arbour asks to postpone N.J. school funding formula'
LOCH ARBOUR -- The tiny seaside community of Loch Arbour is asking a Superior Court judge to postpone implementation of the state's new school funding formula to stave off a 400-percent tax increase for its residents.
Press of Atlantic City - N.J. bills bad for taxpayers, school officials say
By DIANE D'AMICO, Education Writer, 609-272-7241
The state giveth, and the state taketh away, sometimes at the same time.
Representatives of the Egg Harbor Township school district on Monday told a state Department of Education panel at Oakcrest High School in Mays Landing that new state accountability regulations are making it almost impossible for the district to fund its food service program without a deficit.
The district-run program has an almost $500,000 deficit but has been working to reduce costs by shifting more employees to part-time and eliminating or reducing benefits.
One alternative might be to privatize the food service program, but the district tried that several years ago and was unhappy with the quality.
While privatizing could save money, the Assembly Education Committee, in a hastily scheduled Monday morning meeting, introduced a new bill that would make it harder for districts to subcontract any district labor.
Under the bill, A4140, school districts could not subcontract any work that involved employees in a district union until their contract had expired. That could include food service, transportation or janitorial services.
Contracts run for three years, so a district looking to save money by privatizing services would have to wait that long, plus meet other criteria.
A second bill introduced Monday would give non-tenured employees the same right to arbitration on disciplinary issues granted to other employees under their union contract.
Currently, most contract renewals for nontenured employees do not require arbitration. The bill could force more of those renewals into arbitration.
Both bills were supported by the teachers union and opposed by administrative groups, whose representatives said the state cannot pass laws pushing districts to spend less money, then come up with new bills that will cost them more money.
"We try to take care of our employees," Bruce Quinn, assistant executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Business Officials, said of the subcontracting bill. "But we also want to take advantage of savings. They are creating laws that create more inefficiency."
Frank Belluscio, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association, said legal costs, which also are under state scrutiny, likely would rise if all nontenured employee issues had to go to arbitration. He also speculated that a non-tenured teacher with an unsatisfactory performance record could wind up with tenure if the arbitration dragged on long enough.
Several speakers at the hearing were upset that the bills were added to the agenda at the last minute and not available for review until Monday, though some managed to get copies Sunday. Even some committee members conceded that changes might be needed to the bills, and their final approval was not guaranteed.
"This is dangerous stuff, it really is," said Lynne Strickland, of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, who sent out an alert to members Sunday.
The committee also received a bill that outlined procedures for phasing out non-operating school districts. State law already requires executive county superintendents to develop plans to phase out districts that no longer operate schools, but Education Commissioner Lucille Davy has said more legislative guidance is required.
Copies of that bill, A4141, were not available before the meeting, leaving attendees no time to analyze it.
Marie Bilik, executive director of the school boards association, issued a statement saying Monday's meeting was an example of how taxpayers must carefully watch the Legislature in the upcoming election.
"In seeking not to alienate the teachers union, the majority of committee members today approved two bills that are not in the interest of education or taxpayers," she said, "especially in these hard times."
Representatives of the New Jersey Education Association did not return a phone call Monday.
E-mail Diane D'Amico: DDamico@pressofac.com
Press of Atlantic City - Few in N.J. affected by top court's ruling on special education
By DIANE D'AMICO, Education Writer, 609-272-7241
Few New Jersey students are likely to benefit from Monday's U.S. Supreme Court decision that parents may be reimbursed for private school tuition for a child with disabilities, even if the child had never received services from the public school district.
Advocates said the ruling is good news, but only for families that can afford to pay tuition to begin with.
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in Forest Grove School District v. T.A. that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act did not remove the power of hearing officers and federal judges to order reimbursements under appropriate circumstances. Dissenting judges were concerned that the decision could result in an increasing number of expensive private school placements.
Advocates for disabled students in New Jersey said Tuesday the ruling will have a very limited effect statewide because few parents can afford the cost of the private school while they litigate with the district. Private schools for the disabled can cost more than $50,000 per year.
Ruth Lowenkron, an attorney with the Education Law Center, said the decision offers more clarity, but parents considering a private placement on their own are taking a huge risk that they will win in court.
"From a practical perspective, this just won't happen a lot," she said.
About 13,000 New Jersey students, or 1 percent of all students, were placed in private schools for the disabled in 2008, according to state Department of Education data. But those placements are approved and funded by local school districts. Most of the state's more than 215,000 students with disabilities receive services in their local public school.
Diana Autin, co-director of the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network, said the group's goal is more collaboration with districts to keep children in their local schools.
"But a child should not suffer because the district has not offered an appropriate setting," she said. "The ruling might be a bargaining chip for parents who are sure they are being offered a bad choice. But it is limited to parents with the financial resources to put their child in a private setting to begin with."
Attorney Richard Shapiro is representing a family suing the Hopewell Valley School District. The case has been on appeal in U.S. District Court, waiting for the Supreme Court ruling.
"It will definitely help," he said. "The Office of Administrative Law had thrown out our case and said the parents didn't have the right to be reimbursed. If the (Supreme Court) decision had gone the other way, the child would have received nothing."
Shapiro said in most cases parents do work with the school district on an acceptable placement.
E-mail Diane D'Amico: DDamico@pressofac.com
Loch Arbour asks to postpone N.J. school funding formula
Posted by ksantiag June 23, 2009 19:24PM
LOCH ARBOUR -- The tiny seaside community of Loch Arbour is asking a Superior Court judge to postpone implementation of the state's new school funding formula to stave off a 400-percent tax increase for its residents.
Under a joint agreement, Loch Arbour, which sends 24 students to schools in Ocean Township, has paid that district about $300,000 a year over the past 10 years. But when the state adopted its new school funding formula in January 2008, the price tag for Loch Arbour skyrocketed to $1.6 million.
A map of Loch Arbour, a tiny seaside village that is fighting the state's new school funding formula because if would increase their residents' tax bill by 400 percent.
Today, the two towns asked Judge Thomas Cavanaugh in Freehold to sort out the issue. Loch Arbour wants Cavanaugh to issue an injunction against the implementation of the new formula until the matter can be resolved. Ocean Township, which opposes the injunction, wants Loch Arbour to pay the new amount, which is based on property values rather than on a complex list of criteria.
Cavanaugh reserved his decision, but said he would try to rule before July 1, when the towns want to get their tax bills out.
Loch Arbour is challenging the Legislature's repeal in 2008 of a bill that, for the past 10 years, had exempted it from the previous funding formula while setting its portion of the education bill at around $300,000.
Martin Arbus, the attorney for Ocean Township, said the repeal was done appropriately.
"It's pretty clear ... that the restraint should be denied," he told Cavanaugh. "The citizens of the township of Ocean should know what their taxes are going to be and I think that should be immediately."
But Michael Schottland, the attorney for Loch Arbour, said implementation of the formula would make taxes unaffordable for many of the 150 households in the town.
With the average home in the community assessed at $1.4 million, that would mean a $12,000 annual increase just for the school portion of the tax bill for the average homeowner.
"These are people who are going to suffer losses in the interim that are irreparable," he said.
He wanted Cavanaugh to devise a different funding method for the two communities or declare that the state Legislature did not intend for this effect.
But Cavanaugh said he cannot consider either of those options.
"My concern is I then become a legislator, not a judge," he said.
