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..."Put simply, this report proposes seizing money from suburban taxpayers and then telling them to fund their own school projects while using their money to build schools in cities and towns where the taxpayers are not asked to contribute a dime," said Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Morris), who said he will urge all Republicans to vote against new school funding. Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, which represents hundreds of the non-Abbott communities, said the task force's recommendations raise concerns.
"It reminds us of how it was before the schools construction act, when 239 of the non-Abbott districts did not qualify for aid," she said...."
More aid is needed for building of schools
New Jersey's school construction program needs an infusion of $3.25 billion to address a backlog of projects built up over the past two years during an overhaul of the program, a task force analyzing the school building program told Gov. Jon Corzine yesterday.
The report also recommends scrapping the grants that had been awarded to suburban school projects in favor of potentially less generous subsidies for some of their borrowing costs. And it calls for replacing the "first-come, first-served" policy that governed the program's first years with a set of standards to identify the most urgently needed schools, based on criteria such as overcrowding.
The additional funding would bring the total allocated to the school building program to $11.85 billion. "This level of funding is designed to allow the program to move forward in a logically sequenced manner, and address the most pressing needs of the next few years," the governor's Interagency Working Group said in its 30-page report to Corzine.
Lawmakers did not embrace the call for new funding.
"The first problem we have to face is changing the inflating cost of property taxes," said Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) "After that, we can focus in on this."
Of the new money, $2.5 billion would go to the 31 so-called Abbott districts, where the state is under orders from the state Supreme Court to pay the full cost of refurbishing hundreds of outmoded, overcrowded and decrepit public school buildings.
The other $750 million would help pay for schools in the state's other school districts, under a wealth-based formula that would replace the state's current policy of supporting at least 40 percent of every community's building costs.
Unless the Legislature acts quickly on the proposals, the task force said, the SCC will have to decide which of the 59 school projects in Abbott districts approved for construction in July 2005 will have to be suspended.
"This report is an important step in ensuring that our education system has the necessary infrastructure to provide our children with a first-rate education," Corzine said in a statement. He plans to seek legislation for the additional funds in conjunction with bills to enact the other reforms the task force suggested, a spokesman said.
For the nearly 600 school districts not covered by the construction mandate in the Supreme Court's Abbott vs. Burke order, the report recommends scrapping guaranteed grants that have covered at least 40 percent of a community's construction costs.
Instead, the report said, suburban communities should get state aid for debt payments that would be paid out over decades.
"Put simply, this report proposes seizing money from suburban taxpayers and then telling them to fund their own school projects while using their money to build schools in cities and towns where the taxpayers are not asked to contribute a dime," said Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Morris), who said he will urge all Republicans to vote against new school funding.
Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, which represents hundreds of the non-Abbott communities, said the task force's recommendations raise concerns.
"It reminds us of how it was before the schools construction act, when 239 of the non-Abbott districts did not qualify for aid," she said.
The Schools Construction Corp. was set up in 2002 to manage a court-ordered overhaul of school buildings in 31 of the state's neediest school districts, the so-called Abbott districts, and to manage $2.5 billion in grants to middle income and wealthier communities.
Last year, the corporation announced it had used up the first $8.6 billion lawmakers authorized it to spend, forcing officials to suspend work on 97 projects, abandon millions of dollars worth of land that had been assembled for suspended projects and leave hundreds of school projects in the planning stages.
Subsequently, a series of reviews of the SCC found widespread mismanagement, excessive professional fees and evidence of waste and fraud in the school building program.
Yesterday, officials of the corporation said those problems had been addressed through a series of ongoing reforms.
"It's gone from an agency that was clearly broken to one that today understands its mission and has a system in place to properly execute the mission we are giving to the agency," said Barry Zubrow, the former Goldman Sachs executive Corzine appointed to be chairman of the corporation earlier this year.
The new funding would allow the state to complete 59 construction projects identified for funding in July 2005, to resume work on some of the 97 projects suspended for lack of funds last year and to cover $60 million to $80 million in emergency repairs as they are identified, the report says.
Dunstan McNichol covers state government issues. He may be reached at dmcnichol@starledger.com or (609) 989-0341.
State panel urges funds for school builder
A troubled agency should receive $3.25 billion if it makes operational changes, a report says.
Associated Press
The agency in charge of paying to build new schools in New Jersey is ready to start spending money again - but only with big changes in how it operates, according to a report presented to Gov. Corzine yesterday.
Lawmakers should approve $3.25 billion for the Schools Construction Corp., according to the report from a governor-created working group on school construction.
The SCC has had a short history, but one mired in problems.
It was created in 2002 to run New Jersey's ambitious program, mandated by the state Supreme Court, to reconstruct the school buildings in the state's 31 poorest districts, which are known collectively as the Abbott districts. The agency also had some oversight of a smaller program to help suburban districts build new schools.
The SCC struggled not only with the monumental task, but also with waste and the potential for fraud and blew through its initial $8.6 billion faster and with fewer new schools than expected.
The group that issued the recommendations is still calling for the SCC to be given a new name and governing structure.
Until yesterday, the working group said the agency was too much of a mess to get more money to manage. The working group now says the SCC has fixed its management problems enough that it can handle a new allocation.
"It's gone from an agency that was clearly broken to one that today understands its mission," said Barry Zubrow, chairman of the SCC.
Of the $3.25 billion recommended, $500 million would go to cover the shortfalls for projects that are under way now, $2 billion would go to new projects in the Abbott districts and $750 million would help wealthier districts pay for construction.
According to the recommendations, $3.25 billion would last two to three years.
Mary T. Stansky, the president of a group of superintendents from urban school districts and the schools superintendent in Gloucester City, said her worry is the $3.25 billion might not be enough. "We can only wait to see how this new infusion of funding will address each individual district's dilemma," she said.
Political leaders were not worried about giving the schools too little.
Corzine was noncommittal about the recommendation. "I look forward to reviewing the report and working with all stakeholders to make sure that the school construction process addresses the educational needs of our state in a fair, equitable and effective manner," he said in a statement.
State Senate President Richard J. Codey (D., Essex) was clear that the money would not come through immediately. "Don't they know we have a fiscal crisis?" he asked.
Codey, who decides which legislation gets a vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate, said he would like to see the SCC funding question adopted by June 2007 - and that it might not be the entire amount recommended.
Republicans, meanwhile, signaled a fight over any more money for the agency.
"There is no excuse for spending another $3.25 billion on a school construction program plagued with waste, scandal, and corruption when a legislative task force created to study that program has yet to meet," said Assembly Republican Leader Alex DeCroce (R., Morris).
