More than three decades have passed since the state Supreme Court declared that providing the “thorough and efficient system of free public schools” required by the state constitution is the responsibility not of local school districts, but of the state.
In the two centuries that preceded this landmark ruling, New Jersey’s system of free public schools was generally operated — and paid for — at the local level. But the high court ordered the governor and the Legislature to redress the imbalances in educational opportunity fostered by this system, and to assume greater control, both operational and financial, over public elementary and secondary education.
The result has been an avalanche of state mandates, covering everything from administrators’ record-keeping to students’ test scores, and a moderate increase in the state’s share of school funding.
Despite the policy changes, school budgets continued to be submitted to the voters for approval or rejection. And because these were the only budgets at any level of government voted on directly by citizens, they often became the target — and the victim — of public frustration over taxes in general.
Not that these public votes seem to matter. While the South Brunswick Township Council did cut more than $1 million this year, the standard practice of governing bodies who are forced to review unfamiliar budgets in less than a month is to limit the damage and only reduce the school tax levy by the minimum necessary to reduce the tax rate and appease voters.
The entire process, of course, is a sham — a situation that is finally beginning to dawn on lawmakers, who have taken the first step toward reform. By a 45-31 vote, the Assembly has approved a bill that would eliminate the public vote on school budgets except in those instances where the district proposed to exceed the state spending cap.
The measure now moves to the state Senate, where it faces an uncertain future — not because anyone, including the state’s education establishment, opposes eliminating the budget vote, but because the bill would also move the annual school election from the spring to the general election in November and subject the election of school board members to partisan politics.
We understand the concern, but fail to see why school boards should function differently than any other elected body. Plus, in our experience, school boards are as likely to be divided by ideology as any council, committee, freeholder board or even the Legislature.
In fact, we would encourage the state also to end the practice having voters weigh in on fire district budgets and eliminate fire districts and commissions altogether and transfer authority for funding fire departments to municipal governments.
The bottom line here is that eliminating meaningless votes on school and fire budgets are reforms that are long overdue.
