Lawmaker
vows meeting on schools
Abbott "stakeholders" invited.
State senator tells students at P'burg High he wants school
to be built.
Friday, January 13, 206 • By SARAH CASSI • The
Express-Times
PHILLIPSBURG | State Sen. Ronald L. Rice
wants to hold a meeting for "stakeholders" involved in the
funding fiasco surrounding New Jersey Schools Construction
Corp. and Abbott districts.
Rice discussed his meeting plans Thursday
during an Abbott student council convocation at Phillipsburg
High School to discuss students' concerns about the fate of
their districts' construction projects.
Phillipsburg and other Abbott districts
were left in the lurch when the SCC revealed last year it
had only enough of a $6 billion fund left to finance 59 of
an anticipated 350 projects statewide.
Phillipsburg is one of New Jersey's 31
Abbott school districts, named after court decisions
ordering equitable per-pupil financing. Abbott status
requires the state to cover all of a district's Department
of Education-approved construction costs. Phillipsburg
district officials expected the SCC -- a state agency formed
by former Gov. James McGreevey -- to pay for approved
projects, including an $88 million high school.
Despite Phillipsburg's Abbott status, the
state agency announced July 27 it decided against plans to
pay for the high school with portions of the last $1.4
billion of the special fund.
Rice, who chairs the Legislature's joint
committee on public schools, said stakeholders would include
trade unions, professional service employees,
superintendents, school board members, mayors and state
legislators.
Rice said he wants to schedule the
meeting within the next six months, and in the meantime he
has asked his staff to contact all affected Abbott districts
for information about their construction
projects.
Rice said he wants to use the information
to create a staggered list of scheduled projects, starting
with those already under construction that can be completed
this fiscal year to projects that can be completed later
on.
More than 50 student council
representatives and administrators from Abbott districts
attended the meeting, along with state and local officials.
Organizers said the forum gave legislators a chance to hear
student perspectives on how the construction delays have
affected them.
"It's letting them know these students
will be heard," said Jon Gregory, Phillipsburg's student
council president and president of the New Jersey
Association of Student Councils. "We want to show the
students are working as hard as anybody to get these schools
built."
Reporter Sarah Cassi can be reached at 610-258-7171 or by
e-mail at scassi@express-times.com.
© 2006 The Express-Times. Used with
permission.
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