Asbury Park Press - New Jersey Democrats advance budget, millionaires' tax

9:23 PM, Jun. 27, 2011 |

 

Written by

Jason Method | Statehouse Bureau

TRENTON — State Democrats hoping a new millionaires’ tax will result in a political jackpot advanced that proposal through a key legislative committee along a party-line vote Monday.

The Democrats’ proposed $30.6 billion budget and companion legislation reimplementing a millionaires’ tax, if enacted, would provide an additional $1.1 billion for local schools.

The budget passed through the state Assembly and Senate budget committees. The millionaires’ tax passed the Assembly committee but was awaiting action late Monday night in the Senate committee. All votes passed on party lines, with Democrats voting in favor.

Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, has promised to veto the millionaires’ tax; Republican lawmakers, so far, indicate they will remain collectively opposed so that the veto can’t be overridden.

The bills contain legal language that limits the use of the schools money to the rehiring of teachers and support staff or restoring programs eliminated during prior budget cutbacks.

It was the millionaires’ income tax surcharge that drew most of the political fire.

“When you talk to the people making $1 million or more, they understand (the need for the tax),” state Senate Budget Committee chairman Paul A. Sarlo, D-Bergen, said. “They are invested in this state. … They are not going to flee.”

Sarlo contended that the Democratic budget does not raise other taxes or fees, and provides tax breaks to low-income residents and more money to senior citizens for property tax relief.

Republican budget officer Sen. Anthony R. Bucco of Morris County contended the millionaires’ tax was a disincentive to businesses to hire more workers.

“It is foolish to think about another tax while some economists are worried about a second dip in the economy,” Bucco added.

Bucco said the Democrats’ budget, buoyed by optimistic revenue and budget scenarios, was full of gimmickry.

He and other Republicans complained, for example, that the Democratic plan counts the recent health benefit reform as $300 million in savings, even though state Treasury officials said it will save only $10 million in the first year.

By John Mooney, June 28 in Education|Post a Comment

Now on an 11th-hour collision course with Gov. Chris Christie, the Democratic leadership of the legislature has advertised its state budget proposals as ones that will provide property tax relief to every community by way of new school aid.

Yet a breakdown of how each district will fare shows that there will be a lot more relief for some than for others, due, in part to the disparate ways that schools have been funded for years. Some districts would get double, even triple, their expected state aid under the Democrats’ plan, while others would see just a small fraction of an increase.

Both the Assembly and Senate yesterday moved one step closer to approving their versions of a new $30.6 billion state budget for next year, including an additional $1.1 billion in school aid. Both budget committees approved their respective appropriations bills along party lines, setting up votes in both houses on Wednesday.

And both budget committees also approved a separate bill for a new millionaire's tax that would add another $458 million in aid to schools next year, virtually all to suburban districts. Christie has already indicated he would veto such a measure, which could mean an override vote later this week.

"In my opinion, education funding is property tax relief in this state," said Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen), sponsor of the Democrat's budget bill.

But a closer look at the local impact of each bill shows the wide range of dollars that will come with both the budget proposal and the additional revenue from the millionaire’s tax, depending on what the Democrats and Christie finally agree on.

The Abbott Half

Under the Democrats' appropriations bill -- which legislators took pains to stress does not include the millionaire's tax -- almost half of the new aid, or $446.9 million, would go to the state's 31 high-poverty schools under order of the state Supreme Court in this spring’s Abbott v. Burke ruling.

While he disagrees with the ruling, Christie has conceded he must abide by the court and has said he would agree to pay the bill. The amounts range from $734,000 in Keansburg to nearly $82 million in Elizabeth.

The next piece is trickier. The Democrats under their budget plan have said that they would also be able to fund an additional $574.3 million to 215 non-Abbott districts that fail to attain what the state considers "adequate" funding under the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) of 2008. That amount is determined through a complicated formula that determinesa what a district should be paid for its students, weighing enrollment and disabilities, language skills and other factors.

That list of 215 districts has proven a disparate group of urban and suburban communities, struggling and high-performing alike, with each getting vastly different amounts of money to meet the "adequacy" standard.

The Biggest Winners

According to an analysis by the non-partisan Office of Legislative Services (OLS) provided to legislators yesterday, the biggest winners would run the gamut.

They would include suburban districts like the Chathams, Westfield and Bernards Township, each seeing about $2 million more in aid, close to doubling what Christie proposed. Many of the county vocational school districts would get big double-digit percentage bumps. And the largest dollar increases include $11.9 million to Little Egg Harbor, a 33 percent increase, and Pennsauken’s $8.6 million, a 20 percent jump.

Yet for some, the amounts would be relatively small. Hamilton would see a 8.4 percent increase, Lacey 4.5 percent, and West Deptford just 2 percent. Brooklawn would see just $7,000, one of the smallest increases and a fraction of the price of a teacher.

When asked why the Democrats were moving first after the Abbott districts to address the “below-adequate” districts when the amounts were so varied, state Assemblyman Lou Greenwald (D-Camden), a sponsor of the Assembly bill, said he wanted to address those districts that the state’s own formula deemed were the most underfunded.

The state Supreme Court took up the same question in the latest decision, and stopped short off ordering funding to non-Abbott districts. "But we looked at the whole lineage of the Abbott cases and where we wanted to be," Greenwald said in an interview.

"The adequacy issue was the constitutional issue," he said. "That was the first hurdle we needed to clear."

The second hurdle and maybe the more critical one politically was to provide at least some money to the balance of the state’s districts, even if not very much. The budget includes another $85.8 million that would be divided among 358 more districts.

The money would distributed based on how much the districts are currently below full funding under SFRA, with larger districts seeing many of the biggest bumps. For them, the amounts range from lows of $10,000 in Bethlehem and $18,000 in Avon to highs of $2.4 million in Cherry Hill and $1.9 million in East Brunswick, according to the OLS analysis.

Taking the two revenue streams together, the Democrats yesterday sought to put Republicans in a political bind if they voted against a budget that provided additional aid to public schools.

Sarlo repeatedly quoted the numbers to each Republican speaking against the bill, pulling them from the OLS analysis for each legislative district.

"Your towns do pretty good in this budget," Sarlo said to state Sen. Joseph Pennacchio (R-Morris), quoting about $27 million for his legislative district.

The Millionaire's Tax

The last component of additional state aid to schools may prove the most elusive. In a separate bill and likely the biggest battle of the next few days, the Democrats have proposed the millionaire's tax to provide an additional $458 million to 423 mostly suburban schools. With that revenue, it would bring all districts up to full funding under the Democrats plan.

Again that would mean different amounts to different districts, according to the OLS analysis. Linden would see the most in all, or $12.2 million, followed by another $7.6 million in Edison and $6.1 million in Hillsborough. Yet there are also more than 60 districts that would see increases of less than $100,000, from Corbin City to North Caldwell.

Greenwald said that would be the ultimate way to serve every district as equally as possible, meeting the spirit and the letter of the school funding law of 2008. But few think it will get far with this governor, and voting against the local aid -- even if ultimately vetoed -- could prove a thorn for Republicans seeking reelection this fall.

On the eve of today’s signing of a pension and benefit reform in which he struck a compromise with the Democrats, Christie didn’t sound so conciliatory on the millionaire's tax as his office put out a statement again decrying the new revenue plan.

"This is the same old tax-and-spend policies of New Jersey Democrats," said Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak in a statement late yesterday. "This is not the fifth year of the Jon Corzine administration. It is the second year of the Christie administration, where disciplined fiscal policies and lower taxes will continue our state on the road to recovery."

"With this proposal, the Democrats want to drive that recovery head-on into a stone wall," he said.

Whatever the eventual sums, the legislature also added some late language that would earmark all the additional money to classroom costs and programs, saying none of it could be spent on administrative expenses.

The Christie administration is also looking to put its own conditions on at least the Abbott districts and maybe others, requiring the money be steered to certain reform measures, according to one administration official.

Legislative leaders said they at least wanted to make sure that the money went to personnel and programs with the most impact on schoolchildren.

Specifically, the Democratic requirement says the money must be used to restore "classroom and support personnel and services eliminated during the 2010-2011 school year. Including but not limited to expenditures to rehire personnel, reduce class sizes and eliminate school participation fees."

 

The Record-Stile: Failed measure seals fate of NJN

Tuesday, June 28, 2011 Last updated: Tuesday June 28, 2011, 7:20 AM

By CHARLES STILE
COLUMNIST

Michael Aron, the venerable New Jersey Network newsman, sat in the back of the Senate on Monday night, recalling the bitterly fought renomination vote of Chief Justice Robert Wilentz that gripped the Senate 25 years ago.

Aron recited the details as if it were yesterday. His familiar, reassuring baritone jumped an octave as he recalled how the voting was stalled nearly three hours as Democrats worked over "Dr. No" Lee Laskin, the Camden County senator, to change his mind and provide the 21st vote. "It was high drama, man," the former Rolling Stone writer said with a grin.

On Monday, Aron covered another drama in which legislators were "worked over" or lobbied hard not to support a measure that would have canceled the Christie administration's plans to transfer the operation of NJN to the New York-based WNET, the public broadcasting station better known for Lincoln Center opera performances.

The vote was 20 to 19, which means the measure failed, and Christie's long-pursued privatization of NJN will succeed. The transfer will take place on July 1, effectively ending the 40-year rein of NJN and, quite possibly Aron's career as a gumshoe reporter, taking notes in a reporter's pad and directing camera man Tim Stollery to capture footage.

"I'm here as a reporter, not lobbying for my agency," he said.

Another lobbying effort was hard at work over the past few days as it became clear that discontent over the WNET deal gained steam. The Assembly adopted its version of the resolution last Thursday. Critics doubt WNET's claims to provide or "exceed" NJN's programming quality with only 15 to 20 employees, compared with the 130 that now work at the station. WNET's spotty record in the takeover of a Long Island outlet, LIW, also gave lawmakers pause. They fear that over time, the New York-based station will ultimately ignore Jersey, regardless of the requirements in its five-year contract.

Doubts increased after critics combed through the contract. Some, such as Teaneck Democrat Sen. Loretta Weinberg, concluded that it was a giveaway. She said the deal would require that if WNET did muster $6.75 million in revenue to operate the new station, then "guess what? New Jersey could be on the hook for the remainder of the funds in order to continue operations at the new television station. What this means is that while WNET reaps the reward, it doesn't absorb any of the risk in running

a television station in what might be called a soft economy."

Other Democrats began pushing an alternative idea — a combination of the WNET bid and a rejected rival bid by Montclair State University. One idea would have allowed NJN's non-profit foundation to "take the wheel," oversee the operation, said Assemblyman John Burzichelli of Gloucester County. Democrats also included a $2 million line item in their version of the fiscal year 2012 budget, which would have allowed NJN to continue operating for a few more months while a new deal could be worked out. "What is clear is that we need a little more time," Weinberg said.

Christie, who preached the virtues of compromise in his victory lap interviews following the passage of the health and pension benefit reforms, wasn't interested. Christie administration officials, WNET's executive Neal Shapiro and Steve Adubato Jr., whose independent television production company, the Montclair-based Caucus Educational Corp., is going to provide programming for WNET, sprang into action, calling senators and urging them to vote against the resolution Monday night.

They appealed to Sen. Bob Gordon, the Fair Lawn Democrat, who was rumored to vote against the resolution. But Weinberg and Burzichelli impressed upon him the virtues of the Montclair bid and the possibility of renegotiating a better, revamped version.

Suspicions that WNET's winning the bid was a foregone conclusion was fostered by Adubato Jr.'s involvement in the deal. His father, "Big Steve" Adubato, the Democratic Party powerbroker from Newark, has emerged as a Christie ally — Christie paid tribute to Big Steve by visiting his North Ward-based charter school the first day after his 2009 election.

Rumors floated through the State House on Monday that Big Steve used his considerable influence in the Democratic-controlled Senate to help block the anti-WNET bid.

But Adubato Sr. denied it through a statement released late Monday.

"Since the WNET's proposal to take over the operations of NJN was made public, there has been endless speculation and innuendo in the media about my role. Let me once and for all clear the air," Adubato said. "I have not spoken to any lawmakers, the governor or even my son about WNET's proposal to take over the operations of NJN."

He added, "Governor Christie was asked in a press conference when he announced the deal whether he has spoken to me about this issue. He said 'no.' I can confirm that I have never had a conversation about the future of NJN with the governor."

Monday's vote now means that the new station, renamed NJTV, will begin a transitional "summer schedule" by Friday. No more lengthy, down-the-middle reports on the nightly news. No more redoubtable newshounds like anchorman Jim Hooker to deliver the day's headlines. And Aron's future remains in doubt. One thing is for certain — his 30-year-career at NJN is soon about to end.

"I'm just going to sign off for now," Aron said Monday night as he recounted the final vote in a live broadcast. "Thanks, New Jersey."

By John Mooney, June 28 in Education|9 Comments

The Assembly yesterday moved two legislative proposals to change how New Jersey’s charter schools are approved and reviewed, but the Senate looks like it won’t be moving so fast.

With little discussion, the Assembly’s Budget Committee easily approved two charter school bills yesterday: one would allow parochial schools to convert to charters, the other would expand the number of authorizing agencies.

Both will go to the full Assembly for vote on Wednesday, along with two others that would reform other aspects of the state’s charter school process. The most controversial would require a local vote of approval for any new charter school, a proposal that Gov. Chris Christie is almost certain to veto.

Yet even if all are approved by the Assembly, the Senate appears poised to take a much slower road, with an influential senator saying that she is planning public hearings on these and other charter school legislation over the summer.

State Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), chairman of the Senate’s Education Committee, said her committee would not act on any of the measures until a fuller discussion can be held.

She said there may be two dozen bills altogether that deal with charter schools in one form or another, including her own competing charter authorizer bill. The Christie administration has also proposed a sweeping charter reform bill that opens up the way for charter schools even further.

"I want to discuss all the bills being considered," she said in an interview. "We need to have a comprehensive review that will address all the issues together."

Long Odds

Assembly sponsors of the charter bills said they were aware of the long odds for their proposals this week, the last chance to enact the measures before much of the legislature takes a summer break. Few expect much legislative action in the fall, either, with the November elections for every seat in both the Assembly and the Senate.

State Assemblyman Albert Coutinho (D-Essex) said he was worried by the inaction, as more charter schools start operation in the fall and still more are likely to be approved by the state Department of Education (DOE).

"There is a concern if the state continues to race ahead with these," he said. "This is a critical issue, the education of our children, and charter schools should be part of the mix. But they need to be done right."

State Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-Essex) looked resigned to the news that Ruiz would be holding summer hearings, and she added that she doubted the local approval bill would ever become law with this governor.

"But just because he will veto it, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t post it," she said.

Charter school advocates said they were hopeful that Ruiz’s slower pace would allow for smarter legislation in the end. Some of them were planning a Statehouse press conference today to urge the Assembly to vote against the bills.

"We recognize the need to reform the charter school act, but doing it piecemeal doesn’t make sense," said Carlos Perez, executive director of the New Jersey Charter School Association. "We need to look at this as one piece of legislation."