Coalition seeks equitable school funding formula
Action in Trenton is on the horizon as tax bills rise
BY REBECCA MORTON Staff Writer
The expectation of a new school funding formula being unveiled prior to the Thanksgiving holiday did not pan out. A spokesperson for the New Jersey Department of Education (DOE) said there is a general consensus among Gov. Jon Corzine, members of the state Legislature and the DOE to have a new funding formula in place before the next school budget year, which will start on July 1, 2008.

Any new funding formula the state adopts will likely impact people who have children and all property owners.

Taxes to pay for New Jersey public schools make up the largest portion of a property owner's tax bill. Published reports have indicated that the average overall annual property tax bill in New Jersey is about $6,300.

Other categories on a property owner's tax bill include municipal taxes, county taxes and other assessments.

Part of the reason why school taxes in this area are so high is because of the amount of state aid these primarily suburban school districts receive. Lynne Strickland, the executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools (GSCS), reported that where state aid per pupil falls, property taxes will rise.

If a school district's enrollment increases and its state aid package remains flat, as was the case for several years preceding an increase for 2007-08, local property owners are left to pay a larger part of the costs of their local school district.

In a simplified example, if a school district has 1,000 students and receives $1 million in state aid, the aid would amount to $1,000 per pupil. If the cost of educating each pupil is $10,000, taxpayers would be left to pay $9 million.

If the district's enrollment rises to 1,100 students and the state aid remains at $1 million, the aid would amount to about $910 per pupil. Taxpayers would see their overall share rise to $9,999,000.

In a Your Turn guest column published in Greater Media Newspapers in November 2006, Marlboro K-8 School District Superintendent of Schools David Abbott said Marlboro residents pay 84 percent of the total cost of education through property taxes.

Business Administrator Sean Boyce of the Freehold Regional High School District said the previous years of an unchanged funding formula has "put a burden on the taxpayers" as they are the ones who must make up the difference.

Corzine has been clear in his commitment to the formula and school personnel are waiting to see what possible taxpayer relief there may be, Boyce said.

In April, Marlboro voters approved a $59.99 million general fund tax levy to support a $78.5 million budget for the 2007-08 school year. The owner of a home assessed at $500,000 would see his K-8 school tax bill rise from $10,050 in 2006- 07 to $10,200 in 2007-08.

Ten years ago 26 percent of Marlboro's K-8 school budget was paid for by state aid. At present, 15 percent of the total K- 8 school budget is paid by state aid. Taxpayers in Marlboro, as in other communities, must make up the difference.

There are two general distinctions in school districts in New Jersey, Abbott districts and non-Abbott districts (otherwise known as a regular operating district).

Abbott districts came about following a New Jersey Supreme Court decision. According to the DOE's Internet Web site, "the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1998 established a single criterion for determining whether a constitutionally guaranteed education is being provided to students in the poorest schools in the state."

Under the Abbott decisions, these districts receive state aid that is calculated to provide them with the same per-pupil operating budgets as that of one of state's wealthiest school districts. This funding, called Abbott parity aid, is adjusted annually to reflect spending and enrollment in wealthy districts. The Abbott districts are selected by the court and the Legislature to benefit from financial assistance and to implement specific remedies mandated by the court.

There are 31 districts that fall under the Abbott criteria: Pleasantville, Garfield, Burlington City, Pemberton Township, Camden, Gloucester City, Bridgeton, Millville, Vineland, East Orange, Irvington, Newark, Orange, Harrison, Hoboken, Jersey City, Union City, West New York, Trenton, New Brunswick, Perth Amboy, Asbury Park, Keansburg, Long Branch, Neptune Township, Passaic City, Paterson, Salem City, Elizabeth, Plainfield and Phillipsburg.

The issue for non-Abbott districts, according to education officials, is that there has not been a new funding formula of state aid implemented since the 2001-02 school year. This lack of an updated formula means that the amount of aid received by school districts each year since 2001 has been based on enrollment figures from that year (2001).

To give this some perspective, Sharon Witchel, public information officer for the Marlboro K-8 School District, said that for the 2001-02 school year Marlboro had 5,692 students. In the 2006-07 school year Marlboro had 6,150 students. The difference of 458 students was not accounted for in the amount of state aid the district received in 2006-07.

The lack of current enrollment being factored into annual state aid has cost many districts hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Witchel. She said the cost per pupil received in state aid in Marlboro was $1,730 in 2001-02, but it was down to $1,644 in 2005-06.

Ilse Whisner, public information coordinator for the Freehold Regional High School District, said the district has gone through about seven years of no increase in aid, yet enrollment increased by 3,000 students in that time. The district presently has about 12,000 students in six high schools.

Whisner suggested that an area's growth should be included in the new school funding formula.

The GSCS has asked for certain points to be included in the new formula. Factors such as a town's ability to support its local school budget must be based a formula that would be fair to all districts. The coalition maintains that no district should fund schools less than 15 percent or more than 85 percent through property taxes.

Also the GSCS believes that the formula used to determine state aid should be reworked to reflect the fiscal realities within various districts. The formula should be sensitive to not only the community's "local fair share," but also to individual residents' income capacity, and should be updated annually, according to information provided by GSCS.

"The current focus is quality education moving forward," Strickland said when she visited a Marlboro Board of Education meeting on Nov. 6.

One key concern listed among the GSCS recommendations is that specific students with special needs or disabilities receive categorical state support aid no matter where they reside. The request is that this funding would follow the student wherever he or she may move. This is something that districts like Marlboro are in need of, education officials say.

It was reported by the GSCS in a press release that although there was no clear proposal from the Legislature as of yet, the coalition had heard the proposal being worked on by the Legislature had special education funding to include wealthequalizing the aid. Currently special education received "categorical" aid where the aid is assessed by the student's disability.

"GSCS has consistently opposed changing the type of aid methodology and the (governor's) administration and the Legislature are aware of that. In fact, a number of legislators and locally elected officials are on the same page as GSCS in this regard, as are several education groups," according to the press release.

"Marlboro is classified as an I or 'wealthy' district and as such, one of the proposals is to base special education funding on the wealth of a district, rather than the needs of the child. This could have far-reaching, very negative consequences for Marlboro should such a proposal become law. This district could lose approximately $2.5 million in state aid," Witchel said about the rumored new formula.

She added, "Even if we (the district) wanted to, and taxpayers agreed, we would be unable to increase property taxes sufficiently to make up those dollars since there is a stringent cap on how much property taxes could be increased by each year. Therefore, the result of the loss of these funds would be a tremendous reduction in staff, services and programs that we could offer to our students."

There was an increase in state aid for the 2007-08 school year for New Jersey schools totaling $194 million, according to the DOE's Web site. There are about 600 school districts in the state.

Increases are distributed in the largest percentages to districts that are determined to have the greatest needs. The non-Abbott District Factor Group (DFG) is a list of letters from A to J. Districts labeled A are deemed the least affluent, while I and J are considered to be affluent and educationally successful and receive less state aid than the less affluent districts.

The Marlboro K-8 School District carries an I DFG and received a 3 percent increase in state aid for the 2007-08 school year. According to the DOE's summary of aid, Marlboro received $10.1 million in state aid for the 2006-07 year. The 2007- 08 school year saw an increase of $305,584 in state aid to Marlboro, bringing the total amount of state aid to $10.49 million.

The Freehold Regional High School District received $41.1 million in state aid for the 2006-07 school year. For the 2007- 08 school year the FRHSD received $42.4 million, an increase of $1.3 million from the previous year.

Howell, an FG district, received $31.6 million in state aid for the 2007-08 school year, an increase of $922,000 from the previous year.

Lakewood, a B district, received $23.9 million in state aid for the 2007-08 school year, an increase of $3 million from the previous year.

Jackson, a DE district, received $50.6 million in state aid for the 2007-08 school year, an increase of $1.6 million from the previous year.

Plumsted, a DE district, received $9.3 million in state aid for the 2007-08 school year, an increase of $527,000 from the previous year.

Witchel, the Marlboro public information officer, said the unexpected increase in state aid was nice, but it in no way made up for the past years of flat funding when enrollment was rising.

Marlboro's K-8 district officials are urging all parents throughout the area to get involved in seeking a fair funding formula. They said this inequality in funding does not just affect Marlboro. District leaders are asking residents to contact their state legislators.

"There needs to be one strong voice," Witchel said.