Article

Foes: Poor get shortchanged
Friday, January 04, 2008 • BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL • Star-Ledger Staff

Despite passionate objections from urban leaders, Gov. Jon Corzine's plan to overhaul the way New Jersey hands out $7.8 billion in state school aid is poised for final approval on Monday, as committees in both the Senate and Assembly approved the plan yesterday.

"There's still more work to be done, but we are moving forward," Assemblyman Louis Greenwald (D-Camden), chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee, said as members of that panel endorsed the plan by a 9-3 vote shortly after 9 p.m.

Earlier, a divided Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee mustered the minimum eight votes it needed to release the plan for a full Senate vote on Monday, the final day of the legislative session.

At the four-hour Assembly committee hearing, tempers flared as critics complained the lawmakers were passing a flawed formula that will hurt cities and prompt onerous litigation.

"It's wrong. It's divisive. And this will come back to haunt this Legislature because it's racially divisive and educationally unsound," said James Harris, chairman of the New Jersey NAACP.

Rosie Grant, program director of the Paterson Education Foundation, but a resident of Piscataway, said she had no appetite for a formula that will bring her hometown a boost in state aid while holding Paterson's funding almost level.

"If my tax relief is coming on the backs of the children in Paterson and other poorer communities I would rather not have it," she said.

Greenwald dismissed those who said lawmakers were acting too hastily in endorsing a bill they did not fully understand.

"If we are wrong, we will have to correct it," he said. "But if we do nothing, it will be a recipe for disaster."

Corzine's plan, the first retooling of the school funding formula in a decade, would boost state aid by $532 million next year, offering every community at least 2 percent more than they currently receive and giving many of them increases of up to 20 percent.

The administration unveiled a breakdown of how towns would fare under the new plan in mid-December, but it wasn't until days before Christmas that the full 100-plus pages of legislation to enact the proposal were published.

Yesterday, that plan was republished with a series of amendments and Greenwald suggested more changes are in store.

Changes added to the plan yesterday would limit the local property tax hikes Jersey City and other urban communities would be required to impose under the bill.

Other amendments would allow the state education commissioner to approve additional state funding for any district that had dramatic changes in enrollment or demographics this year, and boost aid for communities with special programs that have attracted high numbers of students with autism or other special education needs.

But the proposal sparked a sharp debate over whether it will pass muster with the state Supreme Court, which has issued rulings in the long-running Abbott vs. Burke lawsuit that have required billions of dollars in special state aid for 31 communities deemed incapable of supporting their schools with local taxes.

Early yesterday, Corzine released a letter in which State Attorney General Anne Milgram said the proposal meets the state constitution's mandate to offer every school-age student a thorough and efficient public education.

In the letter, Milgram said the new funding formula sets appropriate standards for students and includes enough funding to "provide the opportunity for all public school students, regardless of their disadvantages, to achieve those standards."

The letter stands in marked contrast to an opinion offered by retired Supreme Court Justice Gary Stein, a member of the court during many of the Abbott vs. Burke rulings.

Stein said the proposed funding formula would turn back the clock on three decades of school funding. Approval of the bill "could well be one of the most costly and counter-productive votes ever cast by the state's Legislature," Stein wrote in a Jan. 2 letter to lawmakers. "A vote in favor of the bill is, in reality, an invitation to a series of lawsuits that will embroil the state and the advocates for the groups that oppose the bill in contentious litigation that will last for many years."

A third legal opinion, from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, concluded the new formula "could" pass constitutional muster, but was not certain. "An alternative line of analysis is also possible," the OLS review concluded.

Democrats and Republicans on the Assembly Budget Committee repeatedly sparred with witnesses who challenged the formula, claiming state taxpayers are already tapped out on school funding and the state cannot spend more on public schools.

"There's $11 billion for education," said Assemblyman Joseph Cryan (D-Union). "At the end of the day, $11 billion should be enough."

Last night's committee hearing was the last scheduled public debate on the complex funding formula. While it is now cleared for final votes on Monday, its fate remains uncertain.

Members of the Legislative Black Caucus, which includes lawmakers who represent Newark and Jersey City, announced they would oppose any effort to adopt the new funding formula next week.

"We do need time to go through this," said Sen. Sandra Cunningham (D-Hudson).

"We're just concerned with an impact that could be savage in our urban districts," said Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who met privately with Corzine, Education Commissioner Lucille Davy and other top administration officials for about 90 minutes yesterday morning. After the meeting, Booker said he was encouraged Corzine was open to minimizing the effects the new plan would have on school operations and tax rates in districts like Newark.

New formula for school aid moves ahead

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