Quality Public Education for All New Jersey Students

 

 
     GSCS Bar Chart: Statewide Special Education cost percent compared to Regular & Other Instructional cost percent 2004-2011
     11-18-10 Proposed Somerset County school for special ed students would include convenience store
     Special Education Series - Asbury Park Press 'Special Care-Unkown Costs'
     GSCS - High costs of Special Education must be addressed asap, & appropriately
     9-23-09 'Tests changing for special ed students'
     7-22-09 'State gives extra aid for schools an extraordinary boost'
     6-26-09 Executive Director to GSCS Trustees; Wrap Up Report - State Budget and Assembly bills this week
     6-24-09 U.S. Supreme Court backs reimbursement for private tuition
     090416 DOE RELEASE - IDEA ALLOCATIONS
     NJ District listing, Title One & IDEA under federal stimulus law
     12-29-08 NJ to new leaders - Fund our schools
     OCT 7 FORUM - DIRECTIONS & PARKING INFO ATTACHED
     OCT 7 FORUM - DIRECTIONS ATTACHED; PARKING FORMS TO BE AVAILABLE HERE SOON!
     GSCS, Special Education Coalition for Funding Reform, and Rutgers Institute co-sponsor Forum Oct 7th
     SAVE THE DATE - OCT. 7TH
     May 29 2008 STATE FUNDING FOR EXTRAORDINARY COST
     GSCS School Funding Paper 'Funding NJ's Schools...Finding a Workable Solution' distributed 10-22-07 at Press Conf in Trenton
     UPDATED - Possible Spec. Educ. Aid Loss to districts (based on current aid per current, yet outdated by 6 years, CEIFA distribution) if state chooses to 'wealth-equalize' this aid in a future formula
     10-23 Media reports & Trenton responses to date re GSCS Press Conf
     Spec. Educ. Aid Loss to districts (based on current aid per current, yet outdated by 6 years, CEIFA distribution) if state chooses to 'wealth-equalize' this aid in a future formula
     11-1-06 Press Conference packet
     9-20-07 New Jersey School Boards Assoc. Releases its Report on Special Education
     7-26-07 Council on Local Mandates reverses DOE spec ed regulation
     6-29-07 Lots of news affecting NJ, its schools and communities this week - STATE BUDGET signed - LIST OF LINE ITEM VETOES - US SUPREME CT RULING impacts school desgregation - SPECIAL EDUCATION GROUPS file suit against state
     Special Education Review Commission Report submitted April 2007
     Special Education - proposed 'burden of proof' legislation, Spec Educ Review Commission Report
     2-15-07 'Parents get boost on special ed rights' Star Ledger
     8-17-06 Special Education costs & Constitutional Questions re Tax Reform
     6-29-06 Mirroring the elements, State Budget looking like a 'natural disaster'
     6-12-06 EMAILNET - Extraordinary Special Education student aid; FY07 Budget 'crunch' is on; news clips
     5-16-06 EMAILNET Action in Trenton
     3-22-06 EMAILNET Governor Corzine's Budget Message
     1-19-06 GSCS member concerns re Proposed Revisions in Special Education Code
     Charts Spec Ed & Health Benefits increases v Local Levy since CEIFA has been frozen
     CHART: Health Benefits & Special Educ v.local levy FY02 to FY06 (pdf)
     2-28-06 Dept of Education Spec Educ Rules
     1-19-06 New Jersey Assoc of School Adminstrators on Sped Educ code revisions
     Proposed State Budget for Fiscal Year 2006 - GSCS Testimony
     Statewide - Special Educ & Total Enrollment Growth Chart 2001-2004[gscs]
     Special Education Enrollments 2003 statewide by DFG
     GSCS Testimony 2003 on Suggestions for School Funding - issues similar to 2005-6
Proposed State Budget for Fiscal Year 2006 - GSCS Testimony

Garden State Coalition of Schools/GSCS

210 West State Street

Trenton, New Jersey 08608

609 394 2828

 

                                 

State Budget Fiscal Year 2006 Issues:Public Support for  Public Education

 

 

Good morning, I am Lynne Strickland, Executive Director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools (GSCS). GSCS member districts, now representing approximately 120 districts throughout the state and 350,000 public school children within the regular K-12 structure, thank you Chairman Greenwald and members of the committee for this opportunity to comment on the FY06 State Budget.

 

This year has been unusually stressful for public education in terms of funding stability for quality programs. For the fourth straight year, state formula aid (per CEIFA) to Non Abbott districts is being  held flat, in spite of enrollment growth in many districts combined with mandated program growth, as well as double digit increases in cost drivers beyond local school district control (e.g., health benefits, insurances, utilities). Stable support for public school programs has further been pressured by the imposition on districts of the hastily passed S1701 ‘school caps’ legislation. This law does not help districts contain costs in any substantive way and unfortunately gave the public false expectations that property taxes would be reduced significantly.  In addition, in passing this bill, the legislature signaled its misunderstanding over what really drives the major costs in school budgets. While the Assembly moved bills ahead to ameliorate some of the negative impacts of S1701, the Senate chose to manage by potential crisis,“giving S1701 a year” to see what problems shake out.

 

Due to state budget ills in the recent past and certain misperceptions that influence policymaking, a number of stressors continue to confront school communities and policymakers alike. It is time to address these stressors with clarity with the objective to engender positive results. Certain issues in particular stand out that require in depth understanding so that decisions by policy makers may be as well informed, thus more productive, as possible:

 

I. Property taxes rising and state aid falling.

 

There is a direct link between increasing property taxes when state aid is pared back to localities (see attached chart). This year that recognition has finally gone public. To his credit, Governor Codey did not point a finger of blame at towns and schools as being the culprits for the large property tax increases in recent years. On the downside, the Governor did not propose any increase in school aid which means taxpayers and school programs alike will continue to be hit hard. It is notable also that the relationship between less state aid requiring more property taxes to support local services has finally been cited with regularity by the press this year.

 

The public gets it too:

 

From a new  Quinnipiac University poll released a little over a week ago ….More than six out of ten New Jerseyans (61%) oppose Codey's plan to reduce or eliminate property tax rebates, and 70% say that they prefer state taxes increased, rather than local property taxes, if tax hikes are needed to pay for local schools and government. ….

 

(Richards/Quinnipiac Univ.): “And in a clear message to Trenton, voters say it's better to raise state taxes than to force property tax hikes by freezing state aid to schools and local government.”

[Politicsnj.com 3-19-05]

 

FYI - Statewide equalized tax rates show that more and more municipalities fall above the line of the statewide equalized average tax rate now, with 335 municipalities - 60% - at and above the average (see Funding & Data Reports/Statewide Equalized Tax Rate Reports at the our website (‘www.gscschools.org’). Those below drop at a more extreme pace and thus the result is that more districts are more stressed to provide local property tax support while less districts are comparatively less stressed. In terms of equalized school tax rates, shore communities – especially in the south – and Abbott districts are the least stressed as groups.

 

Like the Governor’s complaint that the state budget is impacted by entitlement costs, so too are school district budgets constrained. GSCS has repeatedly spoken to the issue of cost drivers in school budgets. We continue to ask the state to work with schools to find ways to cost contain these drivers, such as the State Health Benefits Plan (SHBP) that requires school districts to cover the full costs of health plans for married couples in their system, rather than allowing an incentive buy-back plan so that one spouse’s plan could cover the others. This would save millions of dollars across the state for those districts that participate in the SHBP. This practice is allowed in municipalities but not in school districts. Why not?

 

2. Parity is not the High End Cost Driver in Abbott

 

While GSCS has always supported the concept of parity and continues to do so, this distinction of what drives the high cost of Abbott has become increasingly important to understand. Why? Because policymakers – in seeking to reduce school aid - can promote misguided legislation based on misunderstanding. For instance, a number of legislators have indicated that suppression of I & J spending was an underlying rationale behind S1701. Their premise was that if I & J spending were suppressed that parity aid would be correspondingly reduced and thus less aid would have to be required for Abbott districts. Reduction in parity aid will not result in less aid to Abbotts in current context. At the same time, this back-door approach [i.e., S1701 informal rationale] not only hurts higher wealth districts, but negatively impacts every Non Abbott district in the state.

 

In fact, supplemental aid to Abbotts is the ‘last aid dollar’ decided upon for Abbotts by the state. A state practice underscores the importance and place of supplemental aid: since parity aid is based on a per pupil formula, that parity number will be adjusted when audited enrollment figures are finalized. As directed in letters sent out by the Department of Education for several years now, if an Abbott district’s projected the parity aid number needs to be adjusted downward [due to a reduced pupil count], the dollar amount of aid to that district is not reduced.  Rather, a bookkeeping transfer is made adding what was reduced in the parity amount as an increase in the supplemental aid side of the ledger. This year the parity reduction amounted to more than $90M. That amount was simply renamed supplemental aid and transferred on the books to the supplemental line.

 

In addition, according to the Education Law Center, approximately $627M in supplemental aid (now dubbed “Discretionary Education Opportunity Aid) was awarded over and above parity aid by the State to the Abbott districts for the 2004-05 school year. [90M + 627M = 717M above parity aid.]

 

Another example that parity is not the end cost driver for Abbotts is found on the DOE website (Commissioner’s Press Release on Comparative School Spending Guide 2005)  “…Expenditures in New Jersey’s 31 Abbott districts were, on average, higher than non-Abbott districts. Total comparative costs in Abbott districts ($13,857) exceeded the average expenditure in non-Abbott districts ($10,385) by 33.4 percent...”

 

In 2003-04 I&J Parity was projected at $10,552 by the State. With a rare exception, per pupil spending in Abbott districts was higher, e.g., (Comparative Spending Guide2005):

 

Asbury Park at $17,017       New Brunswick$15,105

Newark at $15,312               Long Branch $12,506.

Camden at $13,476

 

                                                                                                                       

3. School Construction

 

The Star Ledger published an article Sunday 3-20-05 pointing out that wealthier districts are further ahead of middle and lower income districts in obtaining state funds for school facilities. The article did not relay certain options that are available under the law, and this requires clarification.

 

When the School Construction law was written GSCS was concerned that prioritizing district facilities needs be incorporated into the legislation and in fact, it was. Per PL2000, Ch. 72, 18A:7G.5 (d) m. “The commissioner shall establish, in consultation with the Abbott districts, a priority ranking of all school facilities projects in the Abbott districts based upon his determination of critical need, and shall establish priority categories for all school facilities projects in non-Abbott districts.”  Further, the legislation established an appeal process for districts that failed 2 school bond referenda within three years (C.18A:7G-12).

 

Finally, it is important to note that enrollment growth in higher wealth districts outpaced state averages by nearly 2 to 1 in from the late 90’s through 2003.

 

4. The New Jersey system of school funding requires an overhaul: there are two systems of school funding in N.J: 1) Court Protected Abbott and 2) Non Abbott.

 

·         Non Abbott funding is not stable or predictable: The school funding formula, CEIFA, has not been run since 2001-2002. In the first year that CEIFA was not run, the Trenton prediction was that not updating CEIFA saved the state more than $400M then. Since FY03 the Appropriations Act has been used to specify any aid changes for schools, which have been relatively minimal and usually more district-specific.

·         It is important that data reporting must show separate figures for Non Abbotts and Abbotts. It is confusing and inappropriate to combine figures such as statewide per pupil spending amounts for two distinctly different types of school district funding categories. Like the NCLB message, disaggregating the data will avoid Non Abbott and Abbott alike from “getting lost in each other’s averages”.

 

It is past time for the state to take a lead in developing a school funding formula that does not divide but that works to provide support and quality education for all our schoolchildren.