PLAINSBORO: State plan to consolidate school districts raises doubts

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
   PLAINSBORO — Gov. Jon Corzine has called for smaller school districts to be consolidated into regional school districts to save money, but a panel discussion sponsored by the New Jersey School Boards Association on Saturday morning cast some doubt on whether mergers can be achieved.
   Gov. Corzine signed legislation last year to require some of the 603 school districts in the state’s 566 municipalities to form regional districts, and he has given the executive county superintendents a March 2010 deadline to come up with recommendations to implement it. The mergers would affect school districts within a county.
   Of the 603 districts, there are 282 K-6 and K-8 school districts. High school students in those districts attend one of the state’s 31 separate regional high school districts or pay tuition to a neighboring district to attend its high school in a sending-receiving agreement between the two districts.
   The New Jersey School Boards Association assembled the panel and arranged for it to be held after the annual delegates’ assembly at the Wyndham Princeton Forrestal Conference Center in Plainsboro. The audience was made up of school board members chosen to represent their respective boards.
   The panelists — Assistant Commissioner of Education Gerald Vernotica, attorney Vito Gagliardi Jr., Assemblyman Scott Rumana (R-Wayne) and Michael Vrancik, the NJSBA’s director of governmental relations — fielded questions from moderator Michael Aron and some audience members at the session.
   Asked how many of the 603 districts would actually consolidate to form larger ones, Dr. Vernotica said it would be “pretty difficult to predict.” He said the expectation now is that advisory councils would be formed in each county to work with the executive county superintendent to create a plan.
   The intent of the legislation is to create K-12 school districts of 3,500 to 6,000 students, Dr. Vernotica said. But there may be obstacles along the way, and the executive county superintendents would be encouraged to find solutions, he said.
   One obstacle is the apportionment of property taxes among the municipalities that form a regional school district, the panelists agreed. The school property tax most likely would not be split evenly among the member towns, they said.
   ”Each town won’t save money,” said Mr. Gagliardi, who has represented school districts involved in regionalization disputes.
   Some towns within the regional school district would have to pay more in property taxes, said Mr. Vrancik and Mr. Gagliardi. Although there might be some administrative cost savings — eliminating a superintendent, for example — the salary guides for teachers likely would eat up any savings.
   State law requires the teachers’ contract for the larger district within the regional school district to become the prevailing contract, and since teachers in a larger school district generally earn more money, the teachers in the smaller district would receive pay increases when the districts merge — and that’s one reason why regionalization would “absolutely not” reduce costs, Mr. Gagliardi said.
   When Mr. Aron asked about the impact of the new law on sending-receiving arrangements between school districts that involve crossing county borders, Dr. Vernotica said there is nothing in the law that would prevent those arrangements from continuing to exist — especially if the academic programs are intact and there are cost savings.
   Assemblyman Rumana made it clear that although he was not serving in the Assembly when the legislation was approved last year, he “probably” would not have supported it.
   ”I am a local government person,” said Assemblyman Rumana, whose 40th Legislative District is in northern New Jersey. He is a former mayor and councilman in Wayne and also served on the Passaic County Board of Chosen Freeholders.
   Regionalization may not be “the right thing,” the assemblyman said. Local government is generally more efficient, he said, adding that school districts should be encouraged to approve shared services and shared purchases agreements to achieve economic efficiencies.
   Mr. Vrancik, the NJSBA’s director of governmental relations, agreed.
   ”One size does not fit all,” Mr. Vrancik said. Lawmakers have been trying to find ways to reduce property taxes for the past 10 years and “we are just going around and around,” he said.
   Mr. Vrancik was adamant that school districts should not be forced into regional districts. History speaks for itself, he said, noting that more regional school districts have sought to “de-regionalize” than smaller districts have fought to become regionalized in the last few years.
   However, smaller districts could be encouraged to form regional school districts if there were financial incentives provided by the state, Dr. Vernotica said. But that is not likely to happen, given the current economic climate, he said.
   There is no money for “apportionment costs” to make it up to the municipality within the regional school district that would pay more in school district property taxes, he said.
   ”There is nothing (in the legislation) to say, ‘We will give you money for one or two or three years.’ Absent that, there are real concerns when it comes to moving forward (with regionalization),” Dr. Vernotica said.