Suburban
districts warned on aid
Officials tell schools not to
expect funding promised by state program
Thursday, July 07, 2005 • BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL •
Star-Ledger Staff
Suburban school districts are working on
plans to seek voter approval for almost $1billion in
construction work in September, far more than the state can
afford to subsidize with the money remaining in a
$2.5billion school building fund set up for them five years
ago.
In light of the fund's oversubscription,
State Department of Education officials yesterday told
school officials they should not count on getting the 40
percent state funding that lawmakers promised as part of the
state's massive public school construction
program.
Instead, Deputy Commissioner Richard
Rosenberg told district officials to seek voter approval for
two versions of school construction funding -- one formula
that would include an upfront state grant and a second
formula that would include state aid for the annual costs of
repaying bonds issued for the school construction
work.
That scenario would require local
officials to seek voter approval for two different amounts
of borrowing. One would raise enough money to cover the
share of construction costs not covered by the state grant,
while the second would involve seeking approval to borrow
the full cost of the school project, with the hopes that the
state would cover a portion of the repayment costs over the
next two or three decades.
"They're not putting us in an enviable
position," said Richard Noonan, superintendent of schools in
Madison, where officials hope to put a $45.6 million
improvement program on the Sept. 27 ballot.
Noonan said Madison had already started a
campaign to sell voters on the $45.6million plan with a
provision that the state would cover about $10million. He
said he doubted officials could change the sales pitch
now.
"I think the prospect of pulling that off
is remote," he said.
Mired in a series of ongoing
investigations of management failures and waste, the school
construction program is on track to run out of funds for new
construction projects by early next year.
The construction program included $6
billion to meet a 1998 state Supreme Court order that
requires the state to bankroll an overhaul of school
buildings in 31 of the state's neediest
communities.
Another $100million that was set aside
for county vocational- technical school projects has been
spent, and a third fund of $2.5billion set up to pay for
state grants to cover at least 40 percent of suburban school
districts' eligible construction costs is almost tapped
out.
Through March, the state had allocated at
least $2.3billion of that fund to construction projects
already underway, Jack Spencer, chief executive officer of
the Schools Construction Corp., told lawmakers earlier this
year.
With September proposals on track to
exceed the amount of remaining aid, Department of Education
officials yesterday declined to speculate on how the
remaining funds would be awarded.
"Those are concerns for the future," said
Department of Education spokeswoman Kathy Forsythe. "We
can't speculate on how much the projects are going to cost
or who's going to get how much."
Dunstan McNichol covers state government issues. He may
be reached at dmcnichol@starled ger.com or (609) 989-0341.
© 2005 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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