By Katie Wagner, Staff Writer
MONTGOMERY — School districts such as Montgomery and West Windsor-Plainsboro say a proposed funding formula for distribution of special education aid will impose a greater cost burden on local budgets and they are moving to head off the plan.
On Thursday, the Montgomery Township Committee passed a resolution in opposition of the funding formula, proposed by Gov. Jon Corzine. Brad Fay, a former township committeeman who will begin a new term on the committee in January, urged the township to adopt the resolution quickly because of Gov. Corzine’s desire to get the formula passed during the lame duck session of the Legislature.
”The governor has made a proposal. It’s quite clear that Montgomery Township and towns like us will not benefit from this reform,” Mr. Fay said. “It’s setting up Montgomery to get a lot less financial aid with the special education wealth test.”
According to the New Jersey School Boards Association, the new school funding system, which has not been formally sponsored by New Jersey legislators, would “markedly” change the state’s method for distributing aid for special education programming to school districts. Instead of per-pupil special education funding based on a student’s disability and need for service, the amount of state aid would be based on an average statewide classification rate and the average statewide special education cost.
”We do have some concerns already, first the concept of wealth-equalized special education funding. We don’t believe the state should go in that direction and that is because special education has always been based directly on individual student need, regardless of where they live,” said Frank Belluscio, director of communications for NJSBA.
While what Gov. Corzine is proposing calls for a “two-year-hold harmless” period, in which no district will lose state aid, officials have claimed that flat funding could translate to decreased funding for some districts.
”If you don’t qualify for any additional aid, the hold harmless scenario really doesn’t help. It might benefit you if you’re a district with a very significant decrease in enrollment, but not if you’re a district whose population has increased or held steady,” Mr. Belluscio said.
Representatives of West Windsor-Plainsboro and Montgomery school districts are looking for more than flat funding.
”Other than last year, the aid has been really flat. I’m definitely concerned about the school funding formula and how it affects school districts like ours,” said Hemant Marathe, president of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Board of Education. “When you keep adding between 100 and 200 students each year, even flat aid is a loss of aid.”
Increased costs created by inflation also make dealing with flat funding problematic for some districts.
”The best we can hope for is flat state aid, but with the rate of inflation at approximately 4 percent it’s going to put pressure on us and the on the community,” said Montgomery School District Superintendent Sam Stewart.
Gov. Corzine’s desire to have the funding formula approved by the lame duck Legislature also has been criticized by those stakeholders who think there’s not enough time to get the formula passed properly, citing the dangers of rushing a decision.
”We don’t even have a bill in hand yet, said Lynne Strickland, executive director of Garden State Coalition of Schools, an advocacy group that represents primarily suburban and some middle income districts.”
She added, “We don’t have this district-by-district impact. We’re in between a rock and a hard place in trying to anticipate what might be without having any hard evidence of what will be.

