July 14, 2008

State has power to overrule twice-rejected school projects

By GREGORY J. VOLPE
GANNETT STATE BUREAU

As lawmakers push to eliminate school budget votes because they're frequently inconsequential and have recently agreed to borrow billions without voter approval, there already exists a little-used law that says districts can appeal to the state to authorize school construction borrowing repeatedly rejected by voters.

There's been much debate this legislative session centered around voters' rights to decide school spending. Critics objected to borrowing $3.9 billion for school construction because it wasn't placed on a public ballot, as some say the state constitution mandates.

One of the stated reasons for a legislative proposal to move school board elections from April to November, which would eliminate votes on school budgets that stay within spending and taxing caps, is that local officials trim very little — usually about 1 percent, statewide — from levies rejected by voters.

But when lawmakers first approved borrowing $8.6 billion for school construction in 2000, under Republican rule, the law included a clause that said suburban districts — whose projects are partially funded by state grants and most often require a referendum to borrow their local share — can appeal to the state to authorize local borrowing if voters reject a bond proposal twice within three years.

"I'm not surprised at all with the way things are established and structured in New Jersey," said Jerry Cantrell, president of the New Jersey Taxpayers' Association. "... There always seems to be a unique, one-time excuse for avoiding the taxpayers."

Sen. Bill Baroni Jr., R-Mercer, represents Hamilton Township, where local officials weren't allowed to trim a $92 million tax levy soundly defeated in April because a new clause in the state's school funding formula forbid local officials from trimming one penny because the proposed levy was at its minimum level.

"What we have now is sort of the Seinfeld of elections," Baroni said. "It's an election about nothing because if the bureaucrats in Trenton don't like how the voters in Hamilton vote, they'll just overturn it."

The clause is meant to ensure children don't sit in dangerous or unhealthy conditions because of a cranky electorate. Since 2000, just five districts have made the appeal, and only one, Clark, won the right to borrow despite voters' wishes. In the case, an administrative law judge ruled the commissioner should allow the Union County district to borrow $19.2 million it sought to renovate and repair the district's high school but not $12.2 million for additions to two elementary schools.

Three districts — Bergenfield, Manasquan and Roselle — withdrew their requests before adjudication, and Milford filed an appeal this year that is pending.

If a district wins its appeal, it can borrow money for the local share of its project, which is then managed by the state Schools Development Authority.

"What usually happens is they don't appeal it to any degree" said Assemblyman Joseph Malone III, R-Malone, who sponsored the 2000 school construction measure but opposed this year's. "... Those people have a conscience for the most part to do the right thing."

But David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, which filed the suits that got the courts to order the state to build schools in its poorest districts, said the clause should be expanded as education officials write the regulations for how nearly $1 billion will be allocated to suburban districts in the next five years.

The clause doesn't affect the 31 districts covered by the Abbott vs. Burke school funding suit because their projects are fully funded by the state, but Sciarra worries that projects the state deems critical in non-Abbott districts won't proceed because of the whims of voters.

"We simply can't have a solution where the state is saying that certain projects are urgently needed and the project can't get done because there's an inability to generate the local portion," Sciarra said.

That notion didn't pique the interest of state Education Commissioner Lucille Davy, nor the Garden State Coalition of Schools, the lobbying organization for mostly suburban schools.

"That's always been available, and we've had some districts that have come to us under those circumstances," Davy said of the clause.

Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, said the clause is a last resort for districts in tough situations. Allowing the state to intervene without a local request could hurt relations between taxpayers and school officials, she said.

"That may have unintended consequences that in the end might do more harm than good," Strickland said. "We're not ready to consider that kind of sweeping policy change."

Assemblyman David Wolfe, R—Ocean, said lawmakers should move in the other direction.

"I think it really says "Why have a vote? Unless it's a yes, there's no need for the vote," Wolfe said. "If that's the case, I certainly would support any initiative to change that type of legislation to delete that."