An education in budgeting.
By: Hank Kalet
Can there be a better argument for comprehensive tax reform in New Jersey than the governor’s petition asking to keep aid to the state’s poorest school districts flat this year?
Gov. Jon Corzine, in an attempt to balance an almost unbalanceable budget, has petitioned the state Supreme Court to freeze so-called Abbott funding, the money the state is required to give to the 31 poorest school districts in New Jersey.
The request seems logical under current budget restraints, with the rest of the state’s schools being forced to due more with less aid. Urban schools, however, have long been forced to do with less for a long time and need the cash provided under the Abbott rulings just to keep up.
A little history is in order. New Jersey has always paid for its schools with property taxes, which has left property-poor districts at a disadvantage. The disparities between urban schools and richer suburbs, in particular, have been striking, leading to a series of state Supreme Court decisions that first forced New Jersey to create an income tax to fund schools and then to redistribute even more state aid to poor schools.
The argument is fairly simple. Poor districts like New Brunswick and Trenton do not have the property wealth to pay for the same kinds of facilities or programs that have come to be taken for granted in districts like South Brunswick and Cranbury.
To keep up let alone catch up property owners in the cities have to pay more. Or they do with less.
Hence, the Abbott rulings and the requirement that the urban districts get extra help.
The problem, however, is that state budget problems have left less and less money for schools across the state. Gov. Corzine has proposed freezing total state aid at the 2005-2006 levels, but he needs approval from the courts to freeze aid in the Abbott districts. If approval is not forthcoming, other cuts will have to be made possibly in aid to other schools, if not this year, then next.
Already, districts like South Brunswick, which are experiencing ballooning enrollment, are feeling the pinch. Flat aid, as recently retired School Business Administrator Jeff Scott was fond of pointing out, amounts to a cut, with the state paying for a smaller and smaller portion of each student’s education every year.
So, the state may have no choice but to freeze Abbott aid this year and possibly next.
A long-term solution, however, is needed that reduces the state’s reliance on property taxes to fund its schools.
South Brunswick Superintendent Gary McCartney, who spent most of his career in Pennsylvania, talks about alternative taxes, like local income and sales taxes, which would give municipalities and schools a way to provide services without tying their cost to property values.
Property wealth, as he points out, is not necessarily a good indicator of the actual ability to pay. Kendall Park seniors who choose to stay in their houses, for instance, end up with huge tax bills due to the inflation in home values even though they are living on pensions and Social Security.
Then there are the residents of towns like Jamesburg. The borough has far less property wealth per homeowner than Cranbury, which has a huge warehouse district, and too often ends up being forced to decide between after-school programs and higher taxes.
My preferred method is a progressive income tax and some sort of corporate tax dedicated to school funding. These would go a long way toward addressing disparities, so long as they are combined with a per-pupil funding formula that provides enough money to provide all students with the kinds of educational opportunities they will need now and in the future.
A solution is needed now, though, before a tax revolt ends up gutting education funding altogether.
Hank Kalet is managing editor of the South Brunswick Post and The Cranbury Press. His e-mail is [email protected].

