School funding wisdom saluted

Frank Paul Lukacs of East Windsor
    I wholeheartedly applaud the Democratic administration and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine’s proposals regarding property tax reform and the funding of public education.
   Specifically, I agree with the new school funding plan which, in effect, concludes that some school districts in New Jersey are spending too much of the taxpayers hard earned money to educate their students.
   Thus I agree with the conclusion that about 100 school districts in New Jersey should be forced to return the increases in state aid above 2 percent to the local taxpayers.
   In particular, there are two school districts in Mercer County which will be receiving a 10 percent increase in state aid, and which probably are spending too much to educate their students, and therefore should return the additional 8 percent in state aid to the local taxpayers.
   For instance, the East Windsor Regional School District is projected to receive $19,627,000 in state aid for 2008-2009, an increase of $1,784,000 over the $17,843,000 amount in state aid for 2007-2008. Of that amount, according to the new proposals, $1,427,140 should be returned to the local taxpayers. The rationale is that $13,184 should be an adequate amount to spend per pupil in 2008-2009, but East Windsor actually spent $14,223 per pupil in 2007-2008.
   The East Windsor school board probably will vigorously defend the amount that they have spent as being reasonable. However, I am already on record that the district is simply spending too much per pupil for the objectively measurable results, such as the average SAT scores, that they are getting in return for the students of the district.
   Apparently, State Education Commissioner Lucille Davy and her staff have independently — through financial and accounting analysis, mixed with some political reality—realized that some school districts are simply spending more than they should be spending for the objectively measurable results that they are achieving and, therefore, came to the same conclusions that I did.
   My basic objection to the above average per pupil expenditure in the district is that the moneys are not resulting in above average objectively measurable results. I shall assume that I was correct in my analysis and rationale, and the recent proposals on the part of the duly elected and appointed state officials lend credence to that assumption.
Frank Paul Lukacs
Russell Court
East Windsor