THE RECORD ... School funding bill heads to vote

Corzine's school plan advances amid protests from urban officials

TRENTON — Gov. Corzine's school funding formula took its first steps toward approval today but faces an uncertain future, as Democrats from Newark and Jersey City lined up against the proposal, which they said could hurt urban schools and force property tax hikes in those communities.

With some urban lawmakers taking aim at the proposal, Democratic leaders hope suburban Republicans will support the bill to give it the necessary votes to win final legislative approval Monday. Some areas with GOP representation can expect
significant infusions of state aid. Democrats doubt they will turn that money away.

Corzine's plan includes $532 million in aid increases, largely for middle-class school districts that have gone years with stagnant state aid, despite growing enrollments and increasing numbers of needy students.

But the leaders of New Jersey's two largest cities and lawmakers representing those areas said the new formula doesn't deliver enough money to urban areas that depend on state aid to support their schools.

Cities, many of which would receive 2 percent aid increases at first and flat funding in later years, could have to cut back on education spending or increase local taxes to meet rising costs, Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy warned.

"It's taking from the poor to help the poor,'' Healy said.

Black lawmakers warned that Corzine's plan could begin dismantling the "Abbott v. Burke'' state Supreme Court rulings that have mandated enhanced state support for 31 historically poor, urban areas, including Newark and Jersey City.

"To walk back from Abbott is to walk away from African-Americans and Latinos,'' said James Harris, president of the New Jersey State Conference of NAACPs.

Several opponents, including Sen. Ronald Rice, D-Essex, the chairman of New Jersey's Legislative Black Caucus, urged party leaders to slow down movement on a complex bill that was formally introduced just before Christmas and was still
being amended today.

Despite the opposition, Senate President Richard J. Codey, D-Essex, whose district includes part of Newark, said today he expects to move the $7.8 billion plan through his house Monday.

"I think it will be close, but I think the governor, in the end, will prevail,'' Codey said after a meeting with Senate Democrats.

The proposal was approved by the Senate and Assembly budget committees today, putting it on the brink of legislative approval. Asked if getting the necessary votes Monday would require a significant lobbying effort, Codey's eyes went wide.

"Ohhhh yeah,'' Codey said.

Corzine and supporters of his proposal argue the plan will help the 49 percent of poor New Jersey students who live outside the Abbott districts, where aid has been scarce. Education Commissioner Lucille Davy said the new formula ends a
divided funding system that favored Abbott schools at the expense of others and ensures every community pays its "fair share'' for education expenses. No districts would lose money unless their enrollment decreases.

Sen. Barbara Buono, D-Middlesex, a sponsor of the funding plan, said many Abbott school districts had gone years without property tax increases because they relied on state aid, and some have seen economic gains that mean they can raise money, through taxes, for their own schools. In some cases, the state pays 80 percent or more of school costs in those communities.

"This formula is logical, it's fair. I may not like everything about it, but there's no such thing as a perfect bill,'' Buono said, adding that Corzine could have allayed many of the suspicions about the plan by rolling it out sooner.

A delay on the bill could put state aid increases at risk. Davy said schools would have to see final approval of the plan by mid-February in order to incorporate the new amounts into 2008-09 school budgets.

As the debate went on, Attorney General Anne Milgram offered an official opinion that Corzine's proposal would meet constitutional requirements to provide a "thorough and efficient'' system of education.

The state Supreme Court, which helped create the Abbott districts with rulings that said the state had not provided enough support for schools, will almost certainly have to review any new funding formula.

Corzine's school-funding plan advances amid anger

by Dunstan McNichol/The Star-Ledger

Thursday January 03, 2008, 9:43 PM

Tempers flared in Trenton today as lawmakers pushed ahead with a complicated overhaul of the way New Jersey distributes $7.8 billion in state school aid that they hope to adopt into law by Tuesday.

"It's wrong. It's divisive. And this will come back to haunt this Legislature because it's racially divisive and educationally unsound," said James Harris, chairman of the New Jersey NAACP, one of a half-dozen witnesses who contended Gov. Jon Corzine's new funding formula will shortchange Newark, Jersey City and other poor cities.

Before voting 9-3 to approve the bill, Democrats and Republicans on the Assembly Budget Committee sparred with the witnesses who challenged the formula, claiming state taxpayers are already tapped out on school funding, and that the $11 billion the state currently spends on public schools should not be increased.

"There's $11 billion for education," said Assemblyman Joseph Cryan (D-Union). "At the end of the day, $11 billion should be enough."

Tonight's committee hearing, which stretched on for about four hours, was the last scheduled public debate on a complex funding formula that was only unveiled three weeks ago. Earlier in the day the plan was cleared for a final Senate vote when the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee endorsed it with eight votes.

It is now poised for final consideration on Monday, the last full day of the current Legislative session.

Today's votes came after Attorney General Anne Milgram endorsed the constitutionality of the governor's plan. Corzine released a letter from Milgram that states his new school funding formula "is consistent with the thorough and efficient clauses" of New Jersey's state Consitution.

Specifically, Milgram said the new funding formula, which boosts overall state aid by $532 million, sets appropriate standards for students and then includes enough funding "to provide the opportunity for all public school students, regardless of their disadvantages, to achieve those standards."

Her opinion was included in a Jan. 2 letter to Corzine's chief counsel, Kenneth H. Zimmerman, that Corzine released this morning.

The letter stands in marked contrast to an opinion offered by retired Supreme Court Justice Gary Stein, a member of the court that issued a series of rulings in the long-running Abbott v. Burke lawsuit over public school finding. Those rulings required billions of dollars in special state aid for 31 needy communities deemed unable to support their schools with local tax revenues.

Stein said the proposed funding formula would "turn back the clock on three decades of school funding" and could be one of the Legislature's costliest votes ever.

Opponents of the proposal, including Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, visited the Statehouse, where they continued to lobby today for amendments that would boost state aid to their communities.

"We're approaching the 12th hour now," Booker said. "If this works through this is going to have an adverse impact on the schools and urban taxpayers."

Critics from Paterson also lobbied lawmakers, passing out cookies commemorating a mock bake sale they said Paterson would need to conduct to make up the $40 million in state support the new formula will cost that district.