Officials have said the law (Senate bill S-1701) has placed harsh spending restrictions on school districts still dealing with a combination of frozen state aid and rising costs in health care and special education.
By: William Wichert
Just ask Assemblyman Joseph MaLone, R-30th, and he’ll tell you that logic has no place in the political arena of the state Legislature.
That is, of course, if the subject is Senate bill S-1701, the school budget cap law that has engendered the hatred of local school officials and education organizations since its enactment in July 2004.
Officials have said the law has placed harsh spending restrictions on school districts still dealing with a combination of frozen state aid and rising costs in health care and special education. Most of the local districts have been able to maintain their programs, but S-1701 has already led to the forced retirement of 50 teachers in Middletown Township, Monmouth County.
Nine bills have already been introduced in the Legislature to revise several of the cap law provisions, but Mr. Malone said they will never be put up for a vote. Using these bills to correct the S-1701 problem, at a time when districts are adopting their 2005-2006 budgets, would be too, well, logical.
"Don’t look at it logically," said Mr. Malone. "Logic and politics are two different things."
From Mr. Malone’s perspective, S-1701 was only a political gamble by former Gov. James McGreevey, who wanted to use the law to steady property taxes before running for re-election this fall. S-1701 imposed a spending cap of 2.5 percent over the previous year and a 3 percent cap on surplus funds.
Gov. McGreevey, who resigned last November, said in a July 1, 2004 press release: "By providing immediate property tax relief, enacting spending controls and planning for long-term reforms, we are releasing New Jersey citizens from the stranglehold of high property taxes and charting a new course for our great state."
But Mr. Malone, a member of the Assembly Education Committee who voted against S-1701, said the cap law was not created with schools’ best intentions in mind.
"They play politics with this issue and it’s dangerous when you’re dealing with schools and kids and their parents," he said. "He’s (Gov. McGreevey) not running this time, and people are starting to realize it was a hoax. It was done for political reasons."
Although Gov. McGreevey is out of office, the inaction surrounding the nine bills currently at a standstill in the Legislature is proof that the politicking has not stopped, said Mr. Malone.
These bills, seven of which have been introduced in the Assembly, would change the budget caps for special education, transportation, utility, and other costs, but Mr. Malone said he has been told by the Democratic leadership in the Assembly that none of those bills will see the light of day.
"They honestly believe it (adopting one of the nine bills) is an admission of a serious mistake," he said. "They (school officials) can wish and hope all they want, but it ain’t going to happen this year, and I don’t think it’s going to happen next year."
Majority Leader Joseph J. Roberts Jr. (D-5th) and Assembly Speaker Albio Sires (D-33th), the two leading members of the Assembly, did not return calls made to their district offices before the Register-News deadline.
Assemblyman Bill Baroni (R-14th), who is also a member of the Assembly Education Committee, said he is more hopeful than Mr. Malone that one of the bills will be adopted. Although he said sees the S-1701 debate as a policy issue and not a political one, the Assembly did not evaluate the bill enough before adopting it.
The bill, which never came before the Education Committee, was brought to the Assembly floor during the late-night hours of June 24, 2004, when the legislative body was also voting on the state budget, he said.
"Nobody on that (education) committee would have wanted that bill," said Mr. Baroni, who sponsored Assembly bill A-3231 to repeal S-1701 altogether. "The only real debate on this took place on the floor of the Assembly. We can do better for our school kids than that."
Like Mr. Baroni, some local school officials said they still believe that one of the nine bills would be adopted before next year’s budget cycle.
"Something’s got to change, somewhere along the line," said North Hanover Superintendent Richard Carson, whose elementary school district received exemption from some of the S-1701 requirements, because of the more than $6 million in federal impact aid that the district receives every year.
Dr. Carson said he is sure that school districts will do whatever they can to meet the cap restrictions, but he is concerned that S-1701 will lead to massive school tax increases across the state next year, because many schools are using their surplus funds to avoid a tax increase in this year’s budget.
In the Northern Burlington County Regional School District, the school board was forced to reject staffing requests and institute several cost-saving measures in order to avoid much of a tax increase in this year’s budget.
The $30.6 million budget, which was expected to be adopted at a meeting last night (Wednesday), only shows a tax increase in one of the four sending municipalities, but it does not include funds for five new teachers requested by the middle school, said Superintendent James Sarruda.
"During this budget cycle, there weren’t many options," said Dr. Sarruda, who said the district was able to meet the cap restrictions after finding ways to save money in transportation, special education, and utility costs.
The transportation savings came in the form of shared services agreements with neighboring municipalities, while the district saved money on special education by keeping students within the district, he said. More money has been saved by installing an energy-efficient heating system at the middle school, he said.
Bordentown Regional Superintendent John Polomano said his district was able to avoid a tax increase in two of the three sending municipalities because of the increased tax ratables, but he said he could not speculate on what will happen next year.
"It’s really hard (to say) what’s going to happen one year to the next," said Mr. Polomano.
Some of changes to the S-1701 provisions that he would like to see in the coming year include the permanent exemption of health-care costs, which were waived for this year’s requirements, and the exemption of special education and courtesy busing costs. Courtesy busing is the hazardous-route transportation of students who live within two miles of the schools.
"You can’t constantly be coming in at cap, if the population and expenses are growing like that," said Mr. Polomano. This type of transportation annually costs the district about $400,000, he has said.
Mr. Polomano, however, is not as hopeful as his counterparts in North Hanover and Northern Burlington that any of the seven bills in the Assembly will be adopted, especially during an election year for the General Assembly, he said.
"I think people have to get rid of six of these (bills), and unite behind one concept," he said.