County Ed. Leaders Disappointed by Court's Ruling

Board of Education members in Union County expressed disappointment regarding the state Supreme Court’s ruling Tuesday to direct more money to poor, so-called Abbott school districts and not toward suburban districts.

By a 3-2 vote, the court ordered the state to fully fund the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA), as it applies to 31 districts with a high percentage of "disadvantaged" students. That law, adopted in 2008, promised to provide school districts throughout New Jersey with enough money to enable their students to achieve the "thorough and efficient"education promised in the New Jersey state constitution.

But in the 2011 budget proposed by Gov. Chris Christie and adopted by the legislature, SFRA was under-funded by almost $1.6 billion, according to the court's calculations. The governor and lawmakers said they had no choice, given the state's $11 billion budget deficit.

A majority of the justices, however, rejected that argument. Now the governor and lawmakers must figure out where to find the extra $500 million, including the possibility of re-allocating school funds to take money away from wealthier districts and moving it to districts where students have poorer performance.

At the center of the debate is the state Supreme Court's 1985 decision in Abbott v. Burke, in which it ruled that the New Jersey constitution requires the state to provide a "thorough and efficient system of free public schools." The justices found that the state was not meeting that burden and ordered lawmakers to develop a plan for doing so, emphasizing the need to provide both an amount of funding and predictable funding. In several decisions in intervening years, the court and state officials battled over various plans to comply with the justices' order, until 2008, when the legislature passed SFRA. The state asked the court to approve SFRA as meeting the constitutional requirement to provide a quality education. The court agreed to give the state a chance to prove that SFRA would work, although insisting it be reviewed in three years.

On Tuesday, Justice Jaynee LaVecchia wrote in her majority opinion that the court had made it clear in ruling on the 2008 law that it would only meet the court's approval if full funding was provided for the so-called Abbott districts. She cited the court's language that, "Our finding of constitutionality is premised on the expectation that the State will continue to provide school funding aid during this and the next two years at the levels required by SFRA’s formula each year."

She concluded, "Regrettably, the State did not honor its commitment."

Tuesday's ruling does not require the state to fully fund the SFRA, but rather only to provide full funding to the Abbott districts, which include school systems in poor towns such as Plainfield, Newark, Hoboken, Camden and Paterson.

Local board members, however, said they do not see a direct relation between the amount of funding given to the 31 school districts and student performance.

“I believe in fairness, and this is not fairness,” Mountainside Board of Education member Carmine Venes said.

Suburban board members, who have been battling state aid cuts over the past few years, said they do not see the money going to the Abbott districts helping.

“While I believe that every child in New Jersey deserves a good education, we need to make the districts that receive the lion’s share of state aid more accountable,” Westfield Board of Education member Ann Cary said. “We need to see results in those districts.”

Venes raised concerns with how state aid has been spent in the Abbott districts. He said much of the aid has been used for administrative hiring and school construction. He noted new high schools in Hoboken, Long Branch and Neptune include pools and other amenities, which he argued do little to improve student's academic performance.

“Long Branch is like a country club,” Venes said, adding that Abbott classifications fail to account for changes in demographics. “Hoboken is not an Abbott district, maybe it was 20 to 30 years ago. It is now one of the wealthiest towns in the state.”

Venes’ argument has been echoed by many suburban education leaders, who also cited what they said is a disparity between the high taxes that middle- and upper-income residents pay, and the comparatively low funding the state provides their school districts in return. 

"Today's ruling continues and shines a spotlight on the inequity of the state's school funding formula," Cary said. "It is time for a thorough review of the formula. Westfield sends $75 million to Trenton in state income taxes and this year we received $1.3 million back in state aid for the schools. This is unfair."

Scotch Plains-Fanwood Board of Education President Trip Whitehouse agreed. “Relying on property taxes to fund education is not working.... Everyone sits anxiously for the state aid figures to come out from Trenton. The process is broken.”

The New Jersey School Boards Association expressed disappointment in the scope of the ruling, saying it left out “middle income and moderate income communities.” SBA spokesman Frank Belluscio said the association plans to work with the legislature to address school funding issues, particularly for mandated special education costs.

Belluscio said that in the area of special education, the association, which represents school boards statewide, plans to lobby for more state and federal funds to pay for mandated programs. In addition, he said the association would like to see court-ordered special education placements to out-of-district programs be exempt from the state mandated two-percent property tax cap. The out-of-district placements, which must be paid by the home school district, can regularly cost around $100,000.

“It could be a real budget breaker if a court orders a placement mid-year or if a student moves mid-year,” he said.

Many of the districts experienced an 80-percent cut of state aid cut in 2010 as part of Christie’s budget. Some of the funds were returned in the governor’s 2011 budget proposal.

Nevertheless, Cary said, “Yet again, suburban school districts are left to fend for themselves."