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COPYPASTE this LINK into your browser - nj.com/news/bythenumbers/ and find out how your district might fare under proposed formula......................... STAR LEDGER Sunday 1-6-08, 'Vote is too close to call on school funding measure'
NY TIMES - 1-6-08 ON POLITICS Crucial Year for Corzine
1-4-08 NY TIMES 'Panels Approve New Jersey School Financing Plan'
Star Ledger
Vote is too close to call on school funding measure
Sunday, January 06, 2008
BY JOHN MOONEY
Star-Ledger Staff
The last time New Jersey's Legislature approved a new school funding formula in 1996, the plan won in the state Senate by seven votes, virtually along party lines.
When the Legislature tomorrow takes up Gov. Jon Corzine's controversial plan to again revamp how the state funds its public schools, many observers and legislators say the margin could be even tighter, with Corzine needing at least a few Republicans to join his Democratic majority.
Corzine's staff and supporters of the $7.8 billion plan were working over the weekend to muster the necessary 21 votes in the Senate and 41 in the Assembly, with some saying the Senate prospects ap peared the most uncertain.
Worries boiled over after the caucus of African-American legislators questioned whether the measure will hurt needy urban schools, potentially taking a half-dozen Democratic votes from the par ty's slim majority of 22 of 40 senators.
That leaves Corzine and state Senate President Richard Codey depending on at least that many Republicans to gain passage, with GOP leaders saying the wooing has begun.
"Until you count the votes you never know," Corzine said yesterday from Nevada, where he was stumping for presidential candi date Hillary Clinton. "I'm confi dent, but I don't think anything is certain until the votes are counted. We're taking nothing for granted."
Others said negotiations were sure to extend into tomorrow in a political system notorious for its horse-trading of committee appointments, public jobs and various aid programs.
"I think the governor will get the 21 votes," said Michael Vran cik, chief lobbyist for the state's school boards association and a supporter of the measure. "The question is what he needs to do to get them."
Corzine's funding plan calls for a $532.8 million increase in aid to public schools overall, but restructures how it is distributed.
Seeking to break away from the current system that provides the bulk of state money to the 31 poorest districts falling under the state Supreme Court's Abbott vs. Burke mandates, it steers more aid to non-Abbott districts that also have rising numbers of poor and immigrant students.
It also reworks how the state pays for special education and would significantly increase money for preschool, although not immediately.
The measure has gained support among some working-class and middle-income districts that would stand to benefit the most, but it has been criticized by advo cates for the poorest and richest districts that they said would stand to lose or see minimal increases.
Legislators representing some of these districts say they have heard the complaints, with those in urban districts especially concerned. A leader of the black cau cus said at least four of the six members in the Senate, all Democrats, oppose the measure as it stands.
"This is right back to forcing us to either raise property taxes or cut programs," said state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex). "It's just bad legislation the way it is set up now."
'A MAJOR STEP FORWARD'
While widespread concerns have been raised about how quickly the measure is moving through the Legislature, others worry if the plan isn't approved now, an opportunity will be lost.
"If people remain focused on what's important and what's at stake if we don't act, I'm hopeful they will find the political courage to take what for some at this point may be a leap of faith," said state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex), the sponsor of the Senate bill.
"The longer we wait, the longer the inequities grow," she said.
One Republican who said he was leaning toward supporting the bill was state Sen. Robert Martin (R-Morris), although he said he still wants to review the "fine print."
"I think it does reinvent funding in the state, and does for the most part allow the money to follow the child with no longer this bright line between the Abbotts and the oth ers," he said yesterday. "That's a major step forward."
The weekend jockeying comes as still more details emerge about how the plan will affect districts not just next year but also in the years ahead.
The state on Thursday released data on what it sees as each district's "local fair share" of funding for schools, a key factor in how much the state would pay under the formula. The state previously released its analysis of what it says is an "adequate" amount that each district should spend.
By the proposed formula's math, more than 380 districts are spending more than the state's models deem "adequate," including 231 districts that the state said are also overtaxing their residents.
In addition, legislative researchers on Friday produced a report showing the Abbott communities could face years of flat state funding under the proposed formula.
After an initial jump of $104 million this year, overall aid to the 31 needy communities would grow by only $20 million over the following two years, the Office of Legislative Services projection showed.
State Education Commissioner Lucille Davy quickly pronounced the OLS study "very suspect," and said upcoming projections by her office show a different result.
If approved by the Legislature, the new plan's fate is likely to rest with the state Supreme Court and whether it finds the measure constitutional in serving the state's poorest schoolchildren, in and outside the Abbott districts.
"No matter what everyone says, the decision will be on the field," said Martin, a Seton Hall University law professor. "And the field in this case will be the courts."
Staff writers Dunstan McNichol and Deborah Howlett contributed to this article. John Mooney may be reached at jmooney@starledger.com or (973) 392-1548.
NEW YORK TIMES - January 6, 2008
On Politics
Crucial Year for Corzine
By DAVID W. CHEN
TRENTON
ASK Democrats, and they’ll tell you that Gov. Jon S. Corzine had a good 2007, topped by progress on ethics, global warming and property taxes. Ask Republicans (and some Democrats, too), and they’ll tell you that he had an underwhelming year, marked by too many compromises and too many delays on one policy after another.
But as Mr. Corzine approaches the midpoint of his first term, just about everyone agrees that 2008 figures to be his most important year yet — and the hardest.
Already, he is battling with educators and legislators over a new school financing formula that he rolled out a few weeks ago and wants to see enacted before the end of the lame-duck session on Tuesday. Yet Mr. Corzine has angered some of his strongest allies in places like Jersey City and Newark, who say the formula shortchanges urban districts.
On Tuesday, he is set to deliver his State of the State address and detail his controversial plan to refinance the state’s toll roads and reduce debt. Four days later, he plans to embark on a two-month tour to promote his plan, with town hall meetings in all 21 counties. Yet selling the plan figures to be difficult, given how several of Mr. Corzine’s fellow Democrats opposed the idea during the legislative elections last fall.
Mr. Corzine has other daunting goals as well. When asked at a year-end news conference at Drumthwacket, the governor’s mansion, what his priorities were beyond education financing and his toll road proposal, he rattled off the following: universal health care; a revamped energy master plan that is expected to address the possibility of more nuclear power; more stringent ethics reforms; improving urban schools; and property tax relief.
Oh, and then there is the matter of plugging a $3 billion hole in the budget by July 1.
No wonder, then, that Mr. Corzine has been guarding against outsized expectations.
“We didn’t promise miracles; we promised progress, and that is exactly what we are delivering,” he said. “We have relatively finite resources. In fact, I don’t think we even have resources.”
But it is his toll road proposal that is likely to drown out everything else for the foreseeable future, and for good reason. The proposal could either help the state find its financial footing, or it could head to the top of a list of ignominious and expensive public policy decisions.
“Do I think he feels the weight of this fiscal restructuring?” said Senate President Richard J. Codey, a fellow Democrat who has been a solid supporter of Mr. Corzine’s plan. “Yes. If it doesn’t happen, he’s thinking, ‘How do I fix the finances of the state without incredible cuts that the state will not allow or incredible tax hikes that the state will not absorb?’”
The proposal promises to demand the best of Mr. Corzine’s sales skills, honed by his experience cajoling investors and partners while climbing his way to the top of Goldman Sachs. After all, polls have indicated that most residents oppose the general concept of toying with the New Jersey Turnpike, which, in spite of its punching-bag status, remains a state symbol.
Mr. Corzine must also overcome his own shortcomings as a public speaker. When he talks about his proposal, the financial arcana that he clearly loves — you can almost sense that his pulse quickens when he talks about “debt instruments” — must be translated into terms that the average voter can understand, and buy.
Republicans say that they look forward to sinking their teeth into Mr. Corzine’s initiatives. Or more to the point, they’re saying it’s about time that the governor acted.
They say that Mr. Corzine didn’t do much of anything in 2007, other than survive a horrific car accident on the Garden State Parkway. Indeed, what some Republicans consider one of the most revealing essays about the governor to appear last year was written by an anonymous Corzine administration official criticizing his indecision. Published on the Web site www.politickernj.com, it was titled “Governor Paralysis.”
“There has been so much left undone, it’s no wonder it’s a big lift for this coming year,” said Senator Joseph M. Kyrillos Jr., a Republican who represents Monmouth County. “I like the governor personally, but I don’t admire the job he’s doing, because he is acting like a freshman Assembly member in a tough district rather than a former C.E.O. who should have the attitude of taking the job or leaving it, and forcing outcomes that are essential.”
Mr. Corzine, for his part, criticized those who found his pace to be too slow or frustrating, saying it was more important to be thorough than rushed. He has said he is looking forward to the challenges of 2008, and his Cabinet members have said in recent weeks that he seems more energized than before.
Still, Mr. Corzine conceded that he had no illusions that when he does leave office, 2008 and indeed his entire tenure might be viewed in a different light.
“I’m less interested in throwing stones at history than saying the world is what it is, and we need to do those things that we can to try to address those issues,” he said.
NY TIMES January 4, 2008
Panels Approve New Jersey School Financing Plan
TRENTON — Despite mounting criticism from the mayors of the state’s largest cities, Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s proposal to revamp New Jersey’s formula for financing schools cleared two important legislative hurdles on Thursday.
By comfortable margins, the budget committees in both the State Senate and Assembly approved Mr. Corzine’s plan directing more money to children who live outside the poorest districts, which now receive more than half of all state aid, in accordance with a court mandate. The plan would also apportion funds to schools based on demographics including family income, population growth, language ability and special academic needs.
Over all, the formula would increase education spending by $532.8 million the first year, with all districts receiving at least a 2 percent increase for the next three years, and some receiving as much as 20 percent more.
The plan will go to the floor of both chambers on Monday, the last full day of the legislative session. But its passage was hardly assured, since several of Mr. Corzine’s fellow Democrats, particularly from urban areas, have promised to reject the new formula for financing unless substantial changes are made.
Over the last two days, Mr. Corzine has met with two Democratic mayors — Jerramiah T. Healy of Jersey City and Cory A. Booker of Newark — who have been among his strongest allies, yet have been sharply critical of the school plan.
Although Mr. Booker said Thursday that Mr. Corzine had given him some reassurances on such issues as improving student performance, he expressed qualms about what he said was the haste with which the formula was being pushed through the Legislature.
“My preference is more deliberation,” he said. “The more deliberation, the better.”
These sentiments were echoed by nearly all members of the Senate budget committee, during the testimony of the education commissioner, Lucille E. Davy.
State Senator Shirley K. Turner, a Democrat from Mercer County who is chairwoman of the Education Committee, was especially curt, noting that all but one of the towns she represents would receive the minimum 2 percent increase.
“They feel that they are being given the shaft,” Ms. Turner said. “I’m in no position to support this school funding formula today.”
But in the end, she was one of four senators to abstain, and the committee approved the measure 7-1, with some changes, including more money for charter schools.
“I really believe this formula is logical, and it’s fair,” said State Senator Barbara Buono, a Democrat from Middlesex County, who sponsored the bill.
The measure was approved on a 9-3 vote in the Assembly committee.
But even if the measure is approved by the full Legislature on Monday, it still requires the approval by the State Supreme Court.
The court has been guiding school financing issues since its ruling more than two decades ago, Abbott v. Burke, found that students in poor and urban districts were not receiving the same education as their counterparts in wealthier ones.
Earlier on Thursday, the proposal cleared another hurdle when Attorney General Anne Milgram released a letter saying that the new formula would not violate the law.
Yet that did not prevent Gary S. Stein, a former State Supreme Court justice who participated in numerous Abbott v. Burke decisions, from warning legislators in a letter that the bill could be “‘one of the most costly and counter-productive votes ever cast by the State’s Legislature.”
