School execs sweat state aid formula

Districts worry they haven't heard the details

Friday, October 26, 2007

BY JOHN MOONEY

Star-Ledger Staff

As school boards gathered this week in Atlantic City for their an nual convention, there were the usual professional workshops and vendors hawking everything from curriculum to copiers.

Dominating the gathering, though, was a sense of foreboding over the yet-to-be-revealed new for mula for determining state aid to schools.

The Corzine administration is poised to present a formula designed to focus on individual stu dents rather than districts. It is ex pected to help some middle-in come districts with high numbers of poor or special-needs students, while tightening the purse strings on high-spending districts in both the state's wealthiest and poorest communities.

"It's the fear of the unknown, whether you're on the high end or the low end," said Rowland Ben nett, a school board member in South Orange/Maplewood. "There's a sense we can lose out on what we had, but we just don't know."

Bennett was part of a near-capacity crowd at a legislative forum Wednesday led by only one lawmaker and one former legislator. Assemblywoman Joan Voss (D- Bergen) and former Sen. Joseph Doria took pointed questions about the formula.

Voss, vice chairwoman of the Assembly's education committee, voiced her own frustration at how little the administration has shared.

"We have received absolutely no information on the school funding formula," she said, listing the many meetings and hearings on the topic she has attended. "Every time I come out of those meetings, I am scratching my head."

Doria, who recently joined Cor zine's Cabinet as community affairs commissioner, said billions in additional state aid for the state's poorest districts will not suddenly vanish.

"There will always be districts who receive more because they have greater needs," he said.

On the touchiest subject of all, Doria estimated the additional cost of the new funding plan will be between $500 million and $750 million, on top of the $11 billion already spent by the state on school aid and other funding. "But with a (state) deficit of $3.5 billion, it won't be easy," he added.

Outside the convention, the plan's price tag is a hot topic. State Senate President Richard Codey met with Gov. Jon Corzine about the funding plan earlier this week, and in an interview afterward would not disclose a figure but said one popular estimate of $1 billion "was on the high end."

Codey said some districts likely won't receive additional aid, al though he declined to call them losers.

"Would you view those held harmless as losers?" he said. "I don't think so, although they may view it differently."

Many at the convention worried aloud that so little news couldn't be good news. The poorest districts -- mostly large, urban ones -- voiced the most concern, with several administrators saying their own recent meeting with Corzine didn't leave them hopeful.

"It's what he didn't say," said Paterson Superintendent Michael Glascoe. "There were no definitive statements, no real answers ... I've told my administrators it's going to be tough. We need to be prepared for the worst-case scenario."

Others, particularly middle- class districts that may stand to benefit, weren't so downcast. Sayreville is among those mentioned as possibly getting more help.

"We are hopeful it will make a difference," said Kevin Ciak, a Sayreville board member and president of the state school board association. "But we haven't seen anything yet. We just don't know what will happen and when it will happen."