Funding Alert

The Our Children/Our Schools Campaign opposes efforts to rush Governor Corzine’s flawed school funding plan through the current lame duck session of the New Jersey legislature. Along with numerous other education and advocacy groups, including the League of Women Voters of New Jersey, the NAACP and the Special Education Funding Coalition, OC/OS is asking supporters of good government and a fair school funding formula to contact their legislators and ask them not to finalize or vote on the complex plan in the lame duck session. Instead, the proposal should be referred to the new legislative session starting on January 8 so that many unanswered questions and the long-term impact of the plan can be fully examined, and the public can have ample opportunity to respond.

The Governor has been pushing for quick passage even though as of Dec. 15 no bill had been introduced. Reportedly, legislation is being drafted to make the Governor’s plan operative and will be introduced during the week of Dec. 17. However that would leave virtually no time for hearings, deliberation, or public input before the lame duck session ends on Jan. 7.

In an early December letter to fellow members of the legislature, Hudson County Assemblyman (and State Senator-elect) Brian Stack (D-Union City) wrote, "With the upcoming holidays, there is almost no time left to give any school funding proposal just due, including the opportunity to develop alternatives. We need to get this complex and critical issue on a much longer timeframe for public and legislative consideration." (Stack press release here)

This message has been echoed even by groups supportive of the Governor’s plan. For example, an editorial in the Dec. 16 Star Ledger said the proposal "shows promise," but added, "this plan deserves full public discussion. Rushing it through the Legislature in three weeks during the holidays prevents that. Short-circuiting discussion is a tactic used by those who fear open debate will reveal shortcomings. But a thorough vetting can also make a good plan better."

On Thursday, December 13, OC/OS packed Senate hearings on the plan. A joint meeting of the Senate Budget and Education Committees heard a presentation from Education Commissioner Lucille Davy that was long on rhetoric and short on details. (Davy presentation available here.)

Just a day before the hearings the Department of Education released charts and figures supposedly showing how aid would be distributed for 08-09 budgets. However the real, long-term impact of the formula was masked by the absence of specific legislation explaining how the formula would work and by the blatantly political distribution of over $850 million in "adjustment aid" calculated to "grease the skids" for lame duck passage of the Governor’s proposal. More on the plan’s details and omissions here

Davy’s presentation was followed by hours of testimony from advocates and stakeholders on the plan’s many unanswered questions and issues of concerns. Virtually all cautioned against the lame duck rush and called for more time to consider the proposal and alternatives. Advocates for special education and New Jersey’s urban Abbott districts were especially critical of the details revealed so far, but representatives of school boards, teachers unions, and school administrators all agreed it was impossible to evaluate the plan without more details and a specific piece of legislation.

The backroom, closed-door process and the failure to openly address concerns about the plan’s long term impact on urban Abbott districts, successful suburban districts, and special education aid, as well as its overall impact on local property taxes and the State share of school spending, have only fueled fears that New Jersey may once again be about to adopt a plan that has more flaws than fixes for its long-standing school funding problems.