BY MARK ROSMAN
Staff Writer
Property taxes and administrative reform of government and New Jersey’s school districts are the priorities for state assemblymen Michael Panter and Dr. Robert Morgan as they seek re-election to a second term.
Democrats Panter and Morgan won their first term in the Legislature on Election Day 2003, defeating incumbents Clare Farragher and Dr. Michael Arnone, two Republicans who had represented Monmouth County’s 12th District for years.
The district includes Colts Neck, Englishtown, Fair Haven, Freehold Borough, Freehold Township, Little Silver, Manalapan, Marlboro, Millstone, Oceanport, Red Bank, Shrewsbury Borough, Shrewsbury Township and Tinton Falls.
Panter and Morgan are completing their freshman term this year. They are being challenged by Jennifer Beck and Declan O’Scanlon, a pair of Republicans who want to put the 12th District Assembly seats back in the GOP column. The winners of the Nov. 8 election will serve a two-year term in Trenton.
As they make their bid for re-election, Panter and Morgan said they are focusing their legislative efforts on bringing spending under control. With property taxes continuing to rise — and reaching $20,000 a year on some middle-class homes, according to Morgan — the assemblymen are supporting bills they believe would be a start in the effort to control property taxes.
Specifically, they are continuing to support A-5269, a bill to assemble a constitutional convention that would address property taxes. The bill has passed in the Assembly but is stalled in the Senate. Panter and Morgan said they believe a constitutional convention should examine New Jersey’s sources of revenue as well as the state government’s spending components.
The assemblymen said they would support a special session of the Legislature being called to address the property tax issue, but to date the leaders of the Assembly and Senate have made no move in that direction.
Panter and Morgan are also sponsoring A-2417, which would direct the state Department of Education to study the infrastructure of New Jersey’s 600-plus school districts and more specifically the consolidation of school administrative spending at a countywide level. The bill is pending before the Assembly Education Committee.
The assemblymen said they want to reduce administrative costs without impacting local curriculum standards or hiring and firing decisions.
“New Jersey spends more money on school administration than any other state,” Panter said, adding that the spending is not reflected in the amount of money that finds its way into classrooms. “We need to reduce the size of the public education bill in New Jersey. Everyone seems to agree with us on a fiscal perspective, but they, and we, want to ensure that educational quality remains intact. The important message in this is that we do not have to sacrifice the quality of education in order to spend our money more wisely. This is not a threat to home rule.”
Home rule refers to the practice of school administrators and Board of Education members setting priorities and standards for their district based upon the needs and desires of the residents of that community.
When looking for savings in the operation of school districts, Panter and Morgan suggested several ways that goal might be accomplished, including having a superintendent to oversee all of the schools in a county, rather than having a superintendent in every district.
At present, a county superintendent of schools who is appointed by the state Department of Education reviews the budgets of individual districts, but does not direct the operation of the districts in the county.
The assemblymen also suggested that school districts could achieve savings by consolidating administrative functions, purchasing supplies together, and jointly handling payroll tasks, legal and accounting services and information technology needs. At present, they said, every school district has its own employees or department to handle those duties and all of that adds up to considerable expense.
Morgan also suggested it is time to “have a look at all levels of government in New Jersey. The county freeholders go back to the 1600s and are not serving 21st-century society. Government units are incredibly costly to run and can have the potential for corruption, as we have seen in Monmouth County.”
“County government is an anachronism and county functions such as parks and roads can be regionalized. We have to look at why we have county government anymore. This is the time,” he said, adding that there are core leaders in the Legislature who have the political power to push for this type of examination.
These are important issues to residents of the 12th District, Morgan said, explaining that “this district has not been on the radar screen of either party. But the population is shifting to Monmouth and Ocean counties, and we need to educate both sides of the aisle” that with an increase in population must come a realization by the state’s political leaders that the issues of importance to Monmouth and Ocean County residents are the issues that will have to help shape the state’s political debate in the coming decade.