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12-2-07 Sunday news articles on new funding plan

 

Many wary of school aid change
Sunday, December 2, 2007

By JOHN REITMEYER
TRENTON BUREAU


BETH BALBIERZ / THE RECORD

Governor Corzine explaining new school-funding formula at meeting Monday with Record staff members.

Governor Corzine's new school funding plan will boost overall state aid for education and eliminate a policy that automatically directs extra money to poor districts.

But just how much the first major school-funding policy change in the last 10 years will help taxpayers in North Jersey remains to be seen.

The new approach sets amounts of aid for every student based on the needs of the students. For instance, the state would need to spend more money to educate low-income students and those with limited proficiency in English.

State officials have assured school districts that aid will not be reduced. Nevertheless, North Jersey's wealthier districts are skeptical that the new funding formula is going to help them.

"Nobody thinks there's going to be an increase in funding that flows to the north end of the state," said Erik Endress, a Ramsey school board member and communications director for Dollar$ and Sense, a coalition of Bergen County school district officials.

What it means


What's new: Governor Corzine's new school-funding formula adds more state money for education, but North Jersey taxpayers may not get much of it.

What's next: Corzine wants to incorporate the new formula into the fiscal 2009 budget, but it has to win approval in the state Legislature first.

What they're saying: "We're definitely not sitting here expecting some great windfall," said Ramsey school board member Erik Endress.

* * *

THE BIG PICTURE


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* * *

EDUCATION FORUM


What's going on in local schools? Students, parents and teachers are invited to share in this forum.

"My expectations are so low," he said. "We're definitely not sitting here expecting some great windfall."

Richard Snyder, executive director of Dollar$ and Sense, said the new formula will be good for North Jersey taxpayers only if it makes adjustments for the very high cost of living in addition to providing more money for low-income students. "It's a critical difference for us," he said.

State Sen. Anthony Bucco, R-Morris, doesn't believe the new formula is the best way to help suburban taxpayers.

"Sadly, it seems that the implementation of his new school funding formula will punish many middle-class families in suburban districts throughout the state," Bucco said.

Right now, there are 31 districts that get a disproportionate chunk of the state's education funds as a result of the state Supreme Court rulings known as the Abbott decsions. But Governor Corzine said in an interview last week that the court-ordered distribution of money based on where students live doesn't make sense.

"I'd like to see the concept of Abbott gone," he said. "I want money to follow children."

He says the new formula establishes "a more systematic" way of providing the "thorough and efficient" education guaranteed under the state constitution.

The governor says his goal is providing more relief to New Jersey's lower- and middle-income taxpayers.

"We're making it a lot harder for lower-income and middle-income people to make it here, and it's all about paying for public education," he said.

But it's unclear right now how much property-tax relief the new formula will deliver and how it will affect the suburban districts that make up much of the landscape in North Jersey.

Those districts have been clamoring for help as years of flat state funding followed by last year's modest increase have pushed more of the burden onto the local taxpayer.

As much as $500 million more will be spent on education because of the new formula, but a town-by-town breakdown of where the state funding will go is not yet available.

Corzine said he's expecting the issue eventually will end up before a judge.

"Whatever we do, we'll be in court justifying," he said.

Still, the governor is hoping the Legislature will pass the new school-funding formula during the current lame-duck session, which runs through Jan. 8. That would get the formula in place in time for Fiscal 2009.

"We're going to push very hard," he said.

State Sen. John Adler, D-Camden, who served on a committee that looked at the school-funding issue, said he favors Corzine's plan.

"We need dramatic and widespread change in our public schools in order to make them more affordable to the taxpayers of New Jersey," Adler said. "We need a school-funding formula that distributes school aid fairly, according to our kids' needs, not their ZIP codes."

E-mail: reitmeyer@northjersey.com

Copyright

 

 

 Don't rush school aid plan

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Asset monetization isn't the only complex, multibillion-dollar issue confronting Gov. Jon Corzine and the Legislature. The governor has promised a new education funding formula in time for school boards to draft budgets this winter. To meet that timetable, Trenton's leaders are in tent on fast-tracking a $7.3 billion aid plan through the Senate and Assembly in the next five weeks.

They ought to reconsider.

After all, school spending is the lion's share of everyone's property tax bill. Moreover, the result will mean a revamping of so-called Abbott funding for poor districts, which the state has wrestled with for decades.

This is not something that ought to get done on the quick. Corzine has promised a public forum on asset monetization in each of the state's 21 counties. Is financing our public schools any less important?

What is known so far about Corzine's plan is little beyond the catchphrase that state aid should follow the child. Fine, but how will that work?

Tidbits have trickled out, but the details -- specifically how much each district will get and why -- remain stashed in an Education Department computer. Despite that dearth of information, Corzine, Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts and Senate President Richard Codey want to get the massive spending plan wrapped up by Jan. 7, probably voting on that final day of the lame-duck ses sion.

That doesn't leave much time for a reasonable discussion of a proposal that will affect every school district and every property tax payer in New Jersey for years to come.

Last year, during the special session on property tax reform, lawmakers spent months studying the matter, holding myriad hearings and eliciting comments from all sides.

It is not good enough, however, to say that this passes for public debate. People outside of Trenton weren't fully engaged then, and they won't be this time either. Under the Legislature's schedule, any full- blown debate will have to come amid holiday preparations and festivities. (No, dear, we can't decorate the tree this year. We've got to go to Trenton to discuss per pupil spending.)

More important, the Legislature is about to undergo a remarkable makeover. The 40-member Senate will have 16 new faces and the 80-member Assembly will have 27. Those newcomers should have a say. Allowing lame-duck lawmakers who aren't answerable to voters anymore to make decisions that will affect property taxes for years is illogical as well as a snub of voters.

Besides, rushing can amount to a waste of time. It's happened before. In 1990, a newly elected Gov. Jim Florio came up with a new school financing formula. Democrats strong- armed the proposal through the Legislature by late spring. A month or so later, the state Supreme Court forced Florio to rewrite the plan.

The call for caution isn't meant to suggest that longer debates inherently produce better results. But a policy move as momentous as school funding shouldn't be made in a matter of weeks.


© 2007  The Star Ledger

© 2007 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

 

 

 

Two-thirds of schools in line for more aid

Corzine provides a peek at his controversial plan

Sunday, December 02, 2007

BY JOHN MOONEY

Star-Ledger Staff

Gov. Jon Corzine said yesterday a majority of school districts would receive significant increases in state aid under his upcoming school funding plan, and he did not rule out the possibility that every district could get at least a small bump in money from Trenton.

A specific accounting of how much each district would receive remains fluid until updated enrollment numbers are factored in, Corzine said in a 45-minute interview with The Star-Ledger.

However, he revealed that preliminary estimates indicate up to two-thirds of the state's 618 districts would get a marked increase in funding under a plan that sends the bulk of about $450 million in additional money to middle-class communities that have rising low-income and immigrant populations.

Providing the first look at how the plan would affect local schools, Corzine said the beneficiaries would include a handful of the poorest districts that already have been helped by court-mandated funds, as well as a few wealthy ones.

Acknowledging the money pressures on all districts, Corzine said small increases in the 1 to 2 percent range may be feasible for the remainder of the state -- "so that everybody gets at least a little. We haven't decided that yet. It's a matter of how much we can afford."

A full public presentation, including the town-by-town figures, is expected in the next 10 days.

With a state budget yet to be proposed, neither the governor nor administration officials said where the additional money will come from. How much the state can afford in the face of a $3billion deficit is among the many issues sure to mark the upcoming funding debate. New Jersey currently distributes nearly $8 billion in direct aid to schools, about a quarter of the state's $33.5 billion budget.

School organizations and others already are picking at Corzine's broad approach to funding, as well as at the various details that have filtered out. But the governor maintained yesterday that the Legislature can approve a new formula in its current session, which ends Jan. 8.

During the interview, over coffee at a Union Township diner, Corzine alternated between optimism about his prospects and realism concerning the political challenges.

"I make no claims that this will be an easy hill to climb," he said.

Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) said he suggested the added aid to all districts, calling it "overall a plus for districts." The plan has yet to be formally presented, but Codey predicted it will be approved.

"It won't be an overwhelming majority, but it will be a majority," he said.

NEW STANDARD OF 'ADEQUATE'

Corzine provided the interview at the end of a week during which he and his administration started rolling out details of his long-awaited plan to legislators, school associations and interest groups.

Breaking from the current court-mandated system that focuses on the poorest districts, Corzine's plan directs money based on specific needs of each district. It would tie funding to the number of students in each district who are low-income or have limited English skills -- a recognition of the greater expenses for programs like tutoring and bilingual education.

It would set new guidelines for what amount is "adequate" for each child and would weigh a community's own wealth and income to determine the state's share. It also would include additional funding for preschool in any district with low-income students, and add money for school security.

Corzine called the plan's spending models on "the high end," and he rebutted critics who have said many schools would be forced to cut programs and many communities would come under greater pressure to raise property taxes.

"We will still be spending among the most in the nation, and very well may move up," he said. "I don't know why anyone would say it's dumbing down when we are trying to improve the education for a broad set of children."

New Jersey was the second highest-spending state in the country in 2005, spending about $13,800 per pupil overall, according to the most recent figures available from the Census Bureau. The national average that year was $8,700 per pupil.

The state budget puts New Jersey's average this year at about $16,000.

Corzine cited an array of suburban districts that have high numbers of impoverished or immigrant families, without the resources to help them. Those towns include Edison, Clifton, Bloomfield, Dover and Carteret, he said.

"The places where people are really, really strapped," Corzine said. "We have tried to build a formula that acknowledges those needs."

Much of the toughest criticism has come from those representing the 31 urban districts represented in the state Supreme Court's landmark Abbott vs. Burke rulings, which seek to lift the schooling of the poorest children to that of the state's richest.

Corzine maintained that the Abbott districts would not be hurt, and that a half-dozen of the lowest-spending among them could see significant increases. But he repeated that he wants to remove the special status of these districts -- something the court would have to approve -- and extend their programs to poor students who live outside their borders.

"The point is, it is not expansive enough," he said of Abbott funding.

Most legislators and school associations continue to take a wait-and-see approach toward the plan until specific numbers are released. Some Republican leaders are especially skeptical that it will provide property tax relief to their districts, something they said has been downplayed in the latest discussions.

"This all sounds good, but we don't know what it really means," said Assemblyman Joseph Malone (R-Burlington). "There is a time bomb ticking in some of these suburban and rural districts. They will go off the wall if they don't see some real relief."

John Mooney may be reached at jmooney@starledger.com or (973) 392-1548.

 

School-funding plan deflated

Sunday, December 02, 2007

For the past few weeks, I've been listening to our governor promise a new school funding formula that will finally grant suburban taxpayers the property tax relief they have been promised ever since the disco era.

On Friday, we got a glimpse of the plan. And here's what it calls for: the single most costly expan sion of public education in New Jersey history.

A PowerPoint presentation was on the governor's Web site. Most of the slides promised some relief for struggling taxpayers in suburban school districts.

But then, just before the end, there is a slide that proposes free preschool for "All 3 & 4 year olds in districts with DFG "A" or "B", or DFG "CD" with an at-risk concen tration of at least 40%."

If you can't understand that bureaucratese, you haven't been hanging around Trenton long enough. I have -- since 1976. That was the year that Gov. Brendan Byrne pushed through an income tax with the promise of property tax relief.

Such relief never materialized over the years for exactly the reasons we saw Friday. Instead of distributing the tax money equally, the state continually finds new ways to send it to the supposedly "poor" school districts. There's never any money left over for the rest of us.

But this latest move is the boldest money-grab yet. The 31 so- called "Abbott districts" already have state-funded free preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds. They got the free preschools thanks to a 1998 state Supreme Court decision based on the New Jersey Constitution's mandate of free public schools for children between the ages of 5 and 18.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking 3- and 4-year-olds are not in fact between the ages of 5 and 18. And if we keep creating programs like preschool, then we'll never have enough money for property tax relief.

But that's exactly what Corzine did Friday. Districts are ranked by letter grades based roughly on the amount of tax ratables behind each student. A and B districts are at the bottom. There are now 78 such districts that don't have free preschool. There are also many more C and D districts that would qualify for state-funded preschools.

This new preschool bureaucracy could easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Meanwhile, the governor has proposed to increase annual school spending by only about $500 million a year. That barely keeps pace with inflation. So forget about tax relief if you live in a typical middle-class school district in suburbia.

As for the rest of Corzine's plan, I'm tempted to say he's reinventing the wheel. But it's more appropriate to say he's reinventing a flat tire.

For as long as the state Supreme Court has been interfering with school funding -- 34 years -- governors have claimed that they were going to take back control of the system by coming up with a plan that would satisfy the court's demands. And every time a governor has done so, the court has slapped the plan down.

The current such plan, called "CEIFA" for short, was Christie Whitman's plan to satisfy the court. The court knocked it down in several of the incredible 17 decisions in the Abbott school-funding case. Every one of these decisions increased the court's control of the schools.

The only way to reverse this is through a constitutional amendment. Come up with a school funding formula and put it on the bal lot. If it passes, the court can't touch it.

The Republicans attempted such a plan after Whitman came to power in 1994 with GOP majorities in both houses. But a few urban politicians, exhibiting the flair for power politics that has made New Jersey famous, filled up some buses with inner-city residents and showed up at the Statehouse one day. The Republicans collapsed immediately and completely. No profiles in courage there.

A few years later, Democrat Jim McGreevey ran for governor proposing some version of the Michigan school funding plan, a simple scheme in which all students get roughly the same amount of state aid. When McGreevey won the office four years later, he promptly abandoned the plan.

Ever since, state Sen. Len Connors of Surf City, a Republican, has sponsored a bill to permit a referendum that would settle the mat ter by adopting a variation of the Michigan plan.

"Essentially the money would go to the kids, with each kid wherever they are equal -- rich or poor, black or white doesn't make any difference," said Connors. "It's the only way to fund schools. The minute you try to administer based on where the kid lives it leads to all kinds of gerrymandering."

It's a simple solution. But Connors won't see it. He's retiring from the state Senate.

"Do you think these idiots will ever sort it out?" I asked.

"No," Connors replied.

Paul Mulshine may be reached at pmulshine@starledger.com. To comment on his column go to NJVoi ces.com.


© 2007  The Star Ledger

© 2007 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

 

Sunday, 12-1-07, GANNETT NEWS BUREAU

Still unclear if Corzine school-aid plan can produce truce

By Jonathan Tamari • GANNETT STATE BUREAU • December 2, 2007

TRENTON — Sen. Paul Sarlo once compared it to a "civil war."

Inside his own legislative district, covering parts of Bergen, Essex and Passaic counties, he has seen both factions. On one side are suburban schools such as Nutley's facing years of stagnant state education aid, and homeowners paying annual property tax hikes to pick up the slack. On the other side, sometimes just across the municipal border, are schools in poor, urban areas such as Garfield and Passaic that receive the bulk of state support and say they need the assistance to pay for a quality education.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine has waded into the dispute with a new school funding plan that he said aims to steer money to all needy students and communities, regardless of whether they were part of the Abbott v. Burke state Supreme Court cases that for roughly a decade have mandated significantly enhanced state aid for 31 of the state's 616 school districts.

Lawmakers representing suburban areas have long called for a change, but those briefed on Corzine's proposal late last week aren't sure yet if he has found a solution, or just slapped new packaging on the same fractious system.

"Right now I think all that we can say is that we don't have enough details," said Sen. Barbara Buono, D—Middlesex, who represents a heavily suburban area. "I am reserving judgment until I know definitely what it will do for property taxes and how it will play out in my local communities."

While officials in recent days explained the principles behind Corzine's plan — state aid will be allocated based largely on a community's relative wealth and its concentration of needy students — they did not have exact figures to show how the proposal will affect each district. The final numbers, expected within two weeks, will show which schools will share in a $400 million to $500 million aid increase.

"If they don't specifically rectify the inequities that have been occurring between the urban areas and suburban school districts, if they just rename it something else, what does it mean for anybody?" asked Assemblyman Joseph Malone III, R-Burlington.

Two sources briefed on the plan and speaking on the condition of anonymity said some 200 suburban districts and 20 Abbott schools will not receive aid increases. That would leave the majority of schools receiving some increase.

But with a provision that no schools are expected to lose money in the first year under the new formula, Abbotts will still receive at least $4.4 billion in aid, around half of the state total. Some districts may have to pick up more of their own costs in the future.

The stakes for the plan are high.

Advocates for the Abbott districts say the billions of dollars that flow their way each year, the result of Supreme Court rulings that the schools had been under-funded, have helped some make educational strides despite poverty and other challenges. The Abbott schools include about 23 percent of New Jersey school children and receive more than half of all state aid.

"The Abbott designation is vital to these students and schools because it ensures adequate funding from year to year," said David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, which brought the Abbott cases to the Supreme Court.

Corzine said Friday that any plan is likely to end up back in court.

Critics of the Abbott schools, however, say that with so much state money tied up in those districts, local property taxes have grown out of control in other communities. They also point out that some of the Abbott districts have continued to receive state support despite their own economic strides since the lawsuits began, 37 years ago. Trendy Hoboken, the most frequently cited example, is now home to million-dollar condominiums but still receives additional state aid.

Meanwhile, schools in other areas, including those that have similar characteristics to Abbotts but were not included in the court cases, have had to face growing costs, many without any additional state support. Until June, most non-Abbott schools had gone five years without a significant increase in formula-driven aid.

"What we need to do is make sure that every child, wherever they live, that every child's needs are addressed responsibly," Corzine said Friday.

Lynne Strickland, who leads a coalition of 150 largely suburban districts, wanted to know more about the impact of the new formula but praised the philosophy behind it.

"One system of funding in the state certainly would go a ways to unify us again," said Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools.

It's unclear, however, where the money for the new aid will come from. The state is facing a $3 billion budget deficit and the administration is looking to cut spending.

Also in question is whether the five weeks remaining in the current Legislative session will give lawmakers enough time to adequately review the plan, once the details come out. Democratic leaders have said they want a vote on the new proposal by the Jan. 8 end of the legislative session.

Corzine said the principles behind his plan have long been publicly discussed and should not surprise anyone, but Republicans said they still need specifics.

Assemblyman David Wolfe, R—Ocean, issued a statement saying, "New Jersey is in desperate need of a new school funding formula, but that formula must be fair, equitable and approved only after careful deliberation and study."

Jonathan Tamari: jtamari@gannett.com