County Education Leaders Disappointed in Supreme Court Ruling

Board of Education members in Union County are expressing disappointment in the state Supreme Court’s ruling Tuesday to direct more money to the Abbott school districts and not towards suburban districts.

By a 3-2 vote, the court ordered the state to fully fund the School Funding Reform Act, 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.

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

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

At the center of the debate is the 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 the School Funding Reform Act (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.

In her majority opinion, Justice Jaynee LaVecchia wrote that the court 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 Newark, Hoboken, Camden and Paterson.

Venes and other local board members said they do not see a direct relation between the amount of funding given to the 31 school districts and student performance. The Abbott ruling, issued over three decades ago, identified the district’s lowest performing districts and directed increased funding to the districts.

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 BOE member Ann Cary said. “We need to see results in those districts.”

Venes raised concerns with how the 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, which he said include pools and other amenities, which he did not see helping student performance.

“Long Branch is like a country club,” Venes said of the high school in the Shore community.

Venes raised concerns with the districts that fall into the classification by the court.

“Hoboken is not an Abbott district, maybe it was 20 to 30 years ago,” he said. “It is now one of the wealthiest towns in the state. Long Branch is doing very well.”

Venes’ argument has been a constant refrain from suburban education leaders and opponents of the Abbott ruling. They have consistently pointed to Hoboken’s gentrification over the past decade, including the rise in construction of new condos and increased population of those from the financial services sector.

Fairness issues were also central to the reaction from suburban board members, who cited the amount sent in taxes to Trenton versus the return. Venes noted that the state's income tax is supposed to provide relief on property tax payments.

"I would also add that 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."

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 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 the 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 typically run in the high five figures to low six figures.

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

Union County based board members said the current funding system has hurt them in terms of property taxes. Many of the districts saw over 80-percent of state aid cut in 2010 as part of Christie’s budget. Some of the funds returned in the governor’s 2011 budget proposal.

“Yet again suburban school districts are left to fend for themselves,” Cary said of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Cary noted that Westfield saw a 90.4-percent cut in state aid in 2010, which resulted in personnel and program cuts. The 2010 budget cuts were the third straight year of program and personnel cuts in the Westfield schools, which district officials have attributed to state aid cuts. District officials have noted that the increase in state aid in the 2011 budget did not allow restoration of the cuts.

Cary and her colleagues’ opinion in Westfield are shared among suburban districts.

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

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