School
district's woes point to rising 'tax
resistance'
Thursday, January 26, 2006 • BY
DUNSTAN McNICHOL • Star-Ledger
Staff
Highlighting what education officials say
is a growing tension between New Jersey's rising school
costs and the property taxes that pay for them, a South
Jersey school district's failed attempt to raise property
taxes to plug a huge budget gap could prompt widespread
layoffs.
While the Willingboro school district's
financial collapse was caused by management miscues, its
plight has caught the attention of lawmakers and school
officials who say New Jersey leans too heavily on local
property taxpayers to support public schools.
"These kind of things are really
exacerbated in the condition we are under with school
funding," said Lynne Strickland, executive director of the
Garden State Coalition of Schools. "Property taxpayers are
overwhelmed, while state aid has not been increased for five
years."
Willingboro school officials Tuesday
hoped to sell residents on a $400-per-household property tax
hike to cover a $4.7million budget shortfall for the school
year that ended last June. The gap, caused by accounting
mistakes, cost the former superintendent his job.
Voters, however, rejected the proposal,
3,693 to 1,344.
School Superintendent Melindo Persi said
yesterday he plans to send layoff notices to 100 of the
district's 900 workers as early as next week to help shave
costs by $1.5 million. He says as many as 500 workers could
lose their jobs unless more money is forthcoming.
Persi hopes the state Department of
Education will force Willingboro to raise its property tax
rate, or state lawmakers will steer emergency aid to the
Burlington County district, which enrolls 5,500 students in
11 schools.
"People come into town and the sun's
shining, the grass is cut, the kids are in school ... but
essentially we're bankrupt," said Persi.
Persi says Willingboro's problems arose
because former Superintendent Alonzo Kittrell hired 22 more
teachers than the adopted budget allowed for, and overspent
accounts for health benefits and special education by
millions of dollars.
Kittrell said yesterday a faulty
accounting system led him to believe that, until last April,
the district was operating at a surplus.
"I was trying to do things for the kids
in Willingboro that other districts were doing," he said. "I
thought we had the money."
Kittrell said the school board failed to
address the problem last spring, when he told its members
they faced a shortfall. He unsuccessfully sought a
seven-year loan from the state against future state aid
payments to balance the books.
Education advocates and lawmakers say
Willingboro's crisis could point toward greater problems.
The key source of school funding is property taxes, which
have risen 29 percent over the last four years and are the
highest in the nation. Gov. Jon Corzine wants a special
session of the state Legislature to address the
issue.
"I see it as a sign of the times and the
issue of property taxes and the friction between property
taxes and school costs," said Assemblyman Louis Greenwald
(D-Camden), chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee.
"You're going to see a lot more of that."
Willingboro was one of three districts to
suffer defeats at the polls Tuesday.
Voters in Clifton and
Woodstown-Pilesgrove also rejected proposals to finance
school construction projects worth a total of $85 million.
Five other districts, including Monroe, West
Windsor-Plainsboro and Watchung Hills, approved plans to
raise a total of $78.4 million for construction
work.
Willingboro is the first community in at
least a decade to seek voter approval for a loan to cover
operating expenses, rather than building costs, the New
Jersey Schools Boards Association said.
Spending in the district last year
averaged $8,834 per pupil, ninth-lowest among the 104
districts of similar size in the state, the Department of
Education's Comparative Spending Guide shows.
A bill that would have steered $8 million
in special aid to Willingboro was introduced but was not
acted on during the legislative session that ended earlier
this month. A similar bill has been introduced for the new
session.
© 2006 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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