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Property Taxes, School Funding issues
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4-21-06 School budget election fallout - politicians & press comment

 

FOR RELEASE:

April 18, 2006

 

CONTACT:

Press office

Joe Donnelly

(609) 292-7065

 

ROBERTS: ULTRA-LOW SCHOOL ELECTION TURNOUTS

BEAR WATCHING

 

(TRENTON) - Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr. today said low voter turnout and high budget-passage rates in this year's school elections could rekindle legislative interest in eliminating school budget referendums and changing the annual date for electing local school board members.

 "New Jersey's school elections increasingly have all the earmarks of an exercise in futility," said Roberts (D-Camden).  "The numbers repeatedly tell the same story: few voters participate in these elections and the budget votes are little more than a fait accompli in most communities."

Roberts said the trends of virtually meaningless budget referendums and low voter participation rates demonstrate that reforms are needed in the antiquated school election system.  Roberts said he has an "intensified interest" in the results of tonight's school election because he is contemplating the possibility of making school election reforms a component of a package of bills he is assembling to achieve property tax savings through local government service sharing strategies and other efficiencies.

School budget votes are effectively non-binding.  Defeated proposals only require a review by municipal governing bodies, which are not mandated to make changes or cuts before enacting a spending plan.  Even if municipal officials were to reduce a defeated school budget, current law allows school districts to appeal the outcome to the state's education commissioner, who can reverse the changes.

Roberts said continuous low-voter turnouts - roughly 15 percent over the past decade - could reignite discussions about moving elections for school board members to November, when turnout would be much higher.

Roberts noted that as increasing number of newspaper editorials have voiced support for changing the school elections process.  For example, The Star-Ledger of Newark on Monday called the school votes "make-believe democracy."

Other newspaper editorial boards and columnists have crusaded for school election reforms for years.

"These April school elections may be more costly than they are worth," said Roberts.  "If today's results are in line with previous trends, we will need to give serious consideration to changes that would make our school elections system more meaningful and relevant."

 

 

COURIER POST

Corzine urges convention on property-tax changes

By TOM BALDWIN

Gannett State Bureau

 

 

ATLANTIC CITY

 

Gov. Jon S. Corzine, pointing to voter anger evidenced in Tuesday's school board elections, renewed his call Thursday for a convention to overhaul a property-tax system that is blamed for bleeding many in New Jersey of their incomes.

 

"We heard from the voters," Corzine said of the Tuesday elections, when voters in 256 of the state's 549 districts with tax levies on the ballot rejected the proposals.

 

"Enough is enough" was the voters' message, said Corzine, who said "our problem is what it is" in reiterating the $4 billion structural gap in the state budget between projected revenues and projected spending.

 

Corzine told the attendees at the New Jersey Conference of Mayors meeting tough choices will have to be made. "It won't always be pretty, politically. . . . We're going to have to bite off some sacred cow bullets and deal with them."

 

Inside the Taj Mahal casino, though, all sides knew that state budgetary ills flow downstream, landing on mayors.

 

Local officials look to Trenton for money to run their towns and school districts. And when Trenton's check fails to cover increasing costs for town halls, local police or schooling, municipalities raise property taxes to make ends meet.

 

Or as Mayor Tim McDonough of Hope Township in Warren County described how he believed mayors in the room felt listening to Corzine: "It's all about, "What's in it for me?' "

 

Reach Tom Baldwin at tbaldwi@gannett.com

Published: April 21. 2006 3:10AM

 

Voters angry over rising property taxes

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 04/20/06

BY GREGORY J. VOLPE
GANNETT STATE BUREAU

TRENTON — Frustrated with rising property taxes, voters throughout the state defeated a greater number of school budgets this year than they have in more than a decade.

Voters in 293 districts, or 53.4 percent, approved their local tax levies — the lowest passage rate since 1994.

No one was lost for an explanation — stagnant state aid, a backlash against school spending and a recent report on compensation abuses by schools superintendents. But overall, the vote was taken as a sign New Jerseyans are sick and tired with a school funding system that continually raises their property taxes with no sign of relief.

"What you're seeing is the tension between the desire to continue to support the schools and people frustrated about hearing the conversations about property tax relief and continuing to feel the burden," said Richard Ten Eyck, a former school administrator who is now an educational consultant.

Turnout was 2.5 percentage points higher than last year but remained low at 15.7 percent. More than half the 760,725 who cast a vote turned down their local levies, which some took as a referendum on property taxes.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine, speaking on New Jersey 101.5 FM radio, pledged to make property taxes his highest priority once the budget is resolved this summer.

"Gov. Corzine has been in office three months now, and it seems like every rock he turns over, excessive spending and fiscal mismanagement is staring him in the face," Corzine spokesman Anthony Coley said via e-mail. "The people of New Jersey are sick of it, and so is this governor."

Corzine has talked with legislative leaders about calling a special session to deal with property taxes. Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr., D-Camden, said the election results showed frustration with property taxes and the issue will be dealt with this year.

"I've said that before, but I'm particularly hopeful this year," Roberts said.

Districts sought approval of nearly $10.6 billion in local tax levies this year — about $5.2 billion was approved, and about $5.3 billion was rejected.

Defeated budgets are now turned over to local governing bodies, which have until mid-May to recommend cuts. Districts can appeal any budget cut to the state Department of Education.

Last year, voters rejected 161 budgets, or $3 billion worth of tax levies. Of that, $57.8 million, or less than 2 percent, was cut.

Low turnout and the fact defeated budgets aren't changed much prompted some lawmakers to call for reforms of school elections. But most focused on property taxes, saying that was the reason passage rates slipped under 60 percent three times in the early 1990s.

"It's a repeat of what happened right after (former Gov. James) Florio's tax initiatives," said Assemblyman Joseph Malone, R-Burlington. "I think that maybe it sends a message that people do not want higher taxes. They went to the ballot box and made a statement."

Jerry Cantrell of Randolph, a former school board president who formed a property tax reform group, said the votes were a backlash against taxes.

"People are starting to say enough is enough," Cantrell said. "... The voters and citizens are starting to realize that this can't continue."

William Dressel Jr., executive director of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, warned that if Corzine and state lawmakers do not tackle property taxes now, they will join the hundreds of school budgets — defeated at the polls.

"Legislators are afraid to do something because they're afraid of political retribution," Dressel said. "But clearly, these high numbers of defeated school budgets are proof positive that to do nothing is unacceptable and that inaction will clearly bring about political retribution at the next election."

Democrats said they are taking steps toward more accountability in school spending, and the Corzine administration is in a court battle to flat-fund the state's poorest districts covered by the Abbott vs. Burke school-funding equity case.

Sen. Shirley Turner, D-Mercer, said she will convene the Senate Education Committee to look at moving the school election date to reduce the costs of having a low-turnout April election. She said the measure would be one of many aimed at reducing property taxes.

"It's one step in that direction," Turner said. "But the most important step, the giant step, is having either a special legislative session or the constitutional convention to reform the way we fund education."

Sen. Anthony Bucco, R-Morris, called for support of a measure that would scrap school districts' ability to appeal cuts in defeated budgets made by municipal councils.

Voters Tuesday also approved 24 additional questions that asked for about $13.3 million for specific items like staff, programs or renovations and defeated 48 others that sought $23.3 million. They approved six of 10 construction referendums.

Gregory J. Volpe: gvolpe@gannett.com

Tax reform can't wait

Thursday, April 20, 2006

The message contained in all the school budget "no" votes couldn't be clearer: Taxpayers have had it. With school spending accounting for more than 50 percent of their property tax bills, voters didn't hold back in letting politicians know how they feel about the average 7 percent annual increase. Just 53.4 percent of the school budgets passed, the fourth-lowest approval rate in 30 years.

Last year 70.7 percent of the budgets passed, average for the past three decades. Viewed in that light, the 53.4 percent figure is even more astonishing.

The drubbing came in an election designed to favor education interests. The April date guaranteed a low turnout, giving an ad vantage to the teacher unions and school boards, which identify their supporters and get them to the polls. Tuesday was typical, with about 760,000 people voting. Imagine how low the approval rate would have sunk if the election were held in the fall.

Tuesday's results underscore the urgency for Trenton to deal with property taxes now. Gov. Jon Corzine wants a rare July legislative session to address the problem, but lawmakers are balking. They want to take up the issue in the fall, beginning a process that puts off any meaningful restructuring of the state's tax system until 2009. Maybe they haven't heard that the voters don't want to wait that long.