Home News Tribune Online 11/25/07

LETTER OF THE WEEK  http://www.thnt.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071125/OPINION02/711250303/
1004/OPINION

No more stalling on school funding -

I was terribly disappointed during the recent campaign that so few candidates addressed in any specific way the critical issue of school funding. I believe that Gov. Jon S. Corzine and the current leadership in the Legislature have failed the people of this state by being reluctant to encourage any public discourse on the issue of school funding and property-tax relief. Leaving what many voters would consider the most important problem facing New Jersey to a lame-duck legislative session is irresponsible and hints at the type of politics that most people find abhorrent.

It is time that we ceased allowing the officials who govern our state to ignore the very laws that they enacted. Since 2002, the state has failed to carry out the provisions of the current funding formula under the Comprehensive Educational Improvement and Financing Act. It is no wonder that local property taxes have skyrocketed as school districts try to maintain quality programs. It is imperative that our representatives in the Statehouse unite to initiate and work for passage of a comprehensive, flexible and sustainable school-funding system.

Any formula considered should reflect each community's fair and reasonable financial stake in their children's education. Recognizing the financial contribution local taxpayers must make does not absolve the state from its responsibility to provide essential, basic per-pupil funding. It is nothing short of ridiculous that 45 percent of the regular operating districts in New Jersey are considered too wealthy to receive basic state foundation aid. Similarly, the state must guarantee special-needs students per-pupil categorical grants regardless of which town they reside in.

Schools themselves hold huge responsibility in any viable formula. Teachers and their students must be ready to accept accountability. Measures of program effectiveness are already available. School administrators need to be able to produce evidence regarding cost containment and keep budgets within reasonable limits. If strict budgeting guidelines are followed and caps are intact, the need for a school budget vote is eliminated — a move that would save thousands of dollars for every complying district.

Full details on what a workable comprehensive school-funding formula would look like and how it could work have been developed by the Garden State Coalition of Schools, a grass-roots organization made up of parents and school officials that represents about 400,000 students in New Jersey.

I hope our legislators realize that we are at a crucial juncture and that the time to act responsibly is now.

Meredith Shaw, East Brunswick

STAR LEDGER - To the Editor (published shortly before the Nov. 6^th legislative elections):

Like other education groups within New Jersey, the Scotch Plains-Fanwood PTA Council is concerned that a new state funding formula for public schools will not be ready by the time local Boards of Education must adopt their budgets for next year. 

The Governor and the Legislature have indicated that adopting a new formula will be done during November and December of this year in what is known as a “lame-duck session.”  Yet statewide during this election campaign in which every seat in the Legislature is up for a vote, the public is hearing little about the need for a formula or what a new formula might contain.

We are concerned that with the many pressing issues before the Legislature and with the complexity of building the formula, there will not be enough time to complete the job before the Governor gives his annual budget address at the end of February.  NJ statute requires that school districts be notified of their state funding within 48 hours after the Governor’s budget message. If there is no new formula by the time local Boards of Education must act on next year’s budget in March, the 2008-2009 school year will be the seventh year in a row that the state has not provided a funding formula for public education. 

We hear much about the need to provide property tax relief, but the public knows that such relief cannot be realized until a sustainable, fair funding formula for all districts and communities is adopted. For years overburdened local taxpayers have been forced to make up the difference when education aid has fallen short. Valuable programs are unnecessarily put on the chopping block due to the fact there is no funding formula.  This is unfair to the Board of Education, taxpayers, administration and most importantly the students.  NJ communities will receive long term relief only when a new, more equitable funding formula becomes a reality.

We are calling on Gov. Corzine and all members of the Legislature  to make as their priority the quick adoption of a sustainable, equitable funding formula that does not diminish educational quality in NJ schools. 

Trudi Karpel

Corresponding Secretary

Scotch Plains-Fanwood PTA Council