| Property Taxes, School Funding issues | ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
STAR LEDGER - Legislature barely approves school-funding bill - Senate refuses to close voting until supporters find 21st 'yes'
PRESS OF ATLANTIC CITY - $7.8 billion New Jersey school funding bill barely passes
Legislature barely approves school-funding bill
Senate refuses to close voting until supporters find 21st 'yes'
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL
Star-Ledger Staff
After three hours of bare-knuckle lobbying on the Senate floor, Gov. Jon Corzine's plan to boost state school aid by $532 million won final approval from lawmakers late last night.
The proposal won the support of only 16 of the Senate's 22 Democrats, with all six African-American senators opposing it. The final tally, prompted by a pledge to boost state aid for special education by $20 million later this year, was 21-8, with the minimum number of votes needed for passage. Eleven senators did not vote.
Earlier, the Assembly also approved it with the minimum number of "yes" votes, voting 41-36.
Corzine hailed passage of the complex bill, which he made a centerpiece of the legislative agenda he promoted during the short lame-duck session that followed November's legislative elections.
"The new law replaces a flawed system with an equitable, balanced and nonpartisan formula that addresses the needs of all students, regardless of where they live," he said in a statement. "This formula puts the needs of all children on an equal footing and will give them the educational resources they need for success."
The funding plan hung in limbo for more than three hours last night, as only 20 senators endorsed it when it came time for the final vote.
After a long and very public standoff, Democrats coaxed a deciding vote from Sen. Martha Bark (R-Burlington), one of 15 senators who was leaving the Senate after last night's session. They won her vote by agreeing to add $20 million in the upcoming state budget to supplement aid for students with autism and other special education needs.
Afterward, Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex), sponsor of the overhaul of how the state will hand out $7.8 billion to schools, said: "Today members of both parties came together on a bipartisan basis to adopt a school funding formula that is fair to every New Jersey student and looks to make sure that every child in our state receives a quality education, regardless of where they live."
Corzine's proposal is the first major change in a decade in the formula the state uses to parcel out its school aid.
The plan was designed to address an imbalance, built up after years of tight state budgets and court-ordered state aid to poor cities. More than half the state's aid was going to 31 communities, while the balance of New Jersey's 618 school districts grappled with flat funding.
Corzine's plan attempts to define the actual cost of educating students, then steers state aid to every community based on that cost. Critics contend the state's calculation of "adequacy" is flawed, as evidenced by the fact that 42 percent of school districts spend more than that amount. They say key provisions of the new formula will cost poor cities hundreds of millions of dollars.
"This formula would take us back to the early days of the 1970s," said state Sen. Wayne Bryant (D-Camden), another lawmaker whose career in the Senate was ending with last night's voting session. "That is not justice. That is not what we should be doing."
Even after they had cast their initial votes at 6:30 p.m. last night, senators continued to get schooled on the finer points of the bill while it awaited one additional vote. At 7:30 p.m., 13 senators clustered on the Senate floor for an impromptu seminar on provisions in the bill regarding special education.
"This is exactly why we need this in a new session," Sen. Minority Leader Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon) said at the time.
THE LOBBYING
Opponents of the bill who ventured off the Senate floor while the "for" vote was frozen at 20 walked into the arms of a team of lobbyists from the New Jersey Education Association, the powerful teachers union, who pressed them for the one vote that would pass the measure.
"I think it's telling," Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools and an opponent of the bill, said while watching key participants come and go from Corzine's office at 7:30. "When you start with something as complex as a school funding formula, you want a broad consensus. This is reflective of the fact there is no consensus."
For more than a year, Corzine has promised to overhaul the way the state hands out aid to the school districts. But he produced no information about his plan until mid-December. Particulars of the 113-page bill implementing the new formula were not published until days before Christmas, and amendments were being drafted while senators held their sole public hearing on it last week.
During two hours of debate on the measure, supporters said the proposal was a long-overdue effort to help struggling middle-income communities.
"I believe this Legislature supports a change in the way dollars are distributed," she said. "All children, in every community, will have the
opportunity to succeed."
Advocates for the needy communities complained the new plan will strip hundreds of millions of dollars from Newark, Camden and other poor cities to subsidize suburban spending.
Bryant pointed to little-discussed provisions in the formula that offered only marginal aid boosts for communities with exceptionally high rates of poverty.
David Sciarra, the lead attorney in the long-running Abbott vs. Burke school funding lawsuit, which prompted the state Supreme Court rulings that steered billions of dollars in aid to 31 of the state's neediest communities, harshly criticized the new formula.
"The governor's formula is deeply divisive and fundamentally flawed," he said after the final vote. "And that is reflected in the razor-thin margin by which this passed tonight."
Republican critics pointed to provisions that require about 100 communities to return almost $50 million in new aid to their homeowners in the form of property tax relief and that decrease the amount of state aid some communities will receive for autism and other special education services, based on their local wealth.
Sen. Robert Martin (R-Morris), another departing senator who voted in favor of the measure last night, said he viewed the new formula as a step forward.
"I think the governor is onto something," he said. "The money should follow the child."
Opponents of the plan have promised to challenge its provisions in court, saying it arbitrarily ignores years of court findings that New Jersey's poorest communities did not have the local property wealth to adequately fund schools for their residents.
Staff writers Deborah Howlett, Josh Margolin and Susan K. Livio contributed to this report. Dunstan McNichol may be reached at dmcnichol@starledger.com or (609) 989-0341.
$7.8 billion New Jersey school funding bill barely passes
By DIANE D'AMICO Education Writer, 609-272-7241
(Published: January 8, 2008)
TRENTON - The new school funding bill almost derailed Monday as the state Senate struggled into the night to get the votes needed to pass the $7.8 billion spending plan.
The voting process, while ultimately successful, reflected the confusion and uncertainty many Legislators felt about the complex 113-page bill.
The Assembly debated for more than two hours Monday afternoon before approving the bill 41-36 with three Assembly members not voting.
The Senate, scheduled to meet at noon, did not convene until about three hours later. Sen. Barbara Buono,
D-Middlesex, who sponsored the bill, was one of the few who spoke for it on the Senate floor.
Local legislators split their votes.
Assemblyman Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic, voted no, in part because his district includes Abbott districts Vineland and Millville and shore towns with declining enrollment. As a result, both would lose out and get less funding than in the past.
In Cape May County, Van Drew said, districts would have to change how schools are administered or the districts could raise taxes, lose programs or both. He said he asked state Education Commissioner Lucille E. Davy to hold town meetings in both Cumberland and Cape May Counties.
Sen. Nicholas Asselta, R-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic, supported the bill, saying it makes great strides toward offering more services to all children who need it - not just those in the Abbott districts - such as an expansion of preschools for poor students throughout the state.
"I think public preschool is the best thing we've done, and this bill moves it forward statewide," he said "The bill isn't perfect, but it's a blueprint."
Assemblyman James Whelan, D-Atlantic, who voted yes, also supported the preschool component. He teaches swimming in the Atlantic City school district, and said he has seen firsthand how important preschool is in providing students a good start in school.
"If you don't do that, then you're never going to catch up," he said.
He said he also voted for the bill because the Pinelands growth districts in central Atlantic County would see real funding - as much as a 20 percent increase.
But shore towns like Brigantine and Margate as well as Pleasantville, an Abbott district, would see fewer funds than other towns.
"I know that this won't make some people happy, but on the balance it's a good bill,"Whelan said.
Sen. James McCullough, R-Atlantic, voted against the bill, saying while the formula is a good idea, the 20 percent cap on aid hurts the growth districts which deserve much more.
"I'm disappointed," he said. "My districts have been treated unfairly."
Sen. Leonard Connors, R-Ocean, also voted no, and later called the bill rotten because it did not fund all children equally. There is a wealth-equalized component to the bill that Connors said is not fair.
Assemblyman John J. Burzichelli, D-Cumberland, Gloucester, Salem, said it was a well-designed formula that people generally think well of, even if they do not like what the formula means for their district.
Burzichelli added, "I say if this formula was in place 25 years ago, we would probably not be having this discussion today."
Several senators said they support the concept, but still had too many questions to support the bill. The final vote crossed party lines, with six urban Democratic Senators Legislators rejecting the bill because it would eliminate the special needs status and some funding for the Abbott districts.
While the new formula claimed to promise equal funding for all children no matter where they live, some Legislators were not so sure, saying they were concerned that it would not provide adequate funding for their constituents, especially special education students.
Others said the formula was at least heading in the right direction after years of flat funding.
The voting began in the Senate at 6:20 p.m., but lights on the electronic voting board lit slowly. At 18-14, the process stalled for several minutes, then crawled to 19-16, dropped to 18-18, then, at 6:40, stalled at 20-19 with 21 votes needed for passage.
As Legislators negotiated privately to get the votes, representatives of special interest groups said the process reflected the confusion and ambivalence of the rushed bill.
"We supported it because we think more children will benefit," said Joyce Powell, president of the New Jersey Education Association. "But it is a complex issue."
Lynne Strickland, director of the suburban Garden State Coalition of Schools said Legislators are not comfortable with how rushed the bill was, and there are many unanswered questions.
"It's still too fragile," she said. "There are too many concerns."
Finally, at about 9:15 p.m. another vote was taken, and three more votes, all Republican, appeared in the yes column, bringing the total to 23.
Gov. Jon Corzine praised the bill, saying it would provide all children with the resources they need to succeed.
"Today's passage of the School Funding Reform Act represents a significant shift away from the ad hoc, patchwork system of state aid that has been used over the past decade," he said. "The new law replaces a flawed system with an equitable, balanced, and nonpartisan formula that addresses the needs of all students, regardless of where they live."
To e-mail Diane D'Amico at The Press:
DDamico@pressofac.com
To e-mail Derek Harper at The Press:
dharper@pressofac.com
