Geoffrey Wertime and Eileen Oldfield

By: centraljersey.com
ROCKY HILL – The borough’s joint lawsuit seeking to block the elimination of its school district has been dismissed.
After 15 months in the hands of the court, the decision came Sept. 24 from Somerset County Superior Court Judge Allison E. Accurso. In a 24-page decision she evaluated and dismissed all three claims put forth by the borough and Millstone Borough, two municipalities whose non-operating school districts were forcibly merged with their respective receiving districts by the state in the summer of 2009.
The plaintiffs in the case were the borough and its Board of Education, the Millstone Board of Education and Rocky Hill resident and former Board of Education President Janine Lacava. They charged state legislation violated both the state and federal constitutions when it dissolved the districts in Rocky Hill and Millstone and combined them with the districts to which they sent their students, Montgomery and Hillsborough, respectively.
Rocky Hill paid for the suit, which cost about $10,000, Rocky Hill Mayor Ed Zimmerman said.
Prior to the relevant legislation’s passage in July 2009, Rocky Hill and Millstone boroughs both sent students to their neighboring districts rather than maintaining a separate school district. As part of the non-operating arrangement, the two boroughs maintained their own boards of education, and paid a per-pupil tuition in the districts receiving their students – in the case of Millstone Borough, 66 students were sent to the Hillsborough School District, and in Rocky Hill Borough, 96 students attended Montgomery schools.
The 2009 merger, which officials said was introduced, approved and put into effect in less than one week’s time, had several officials thinking the mergers happened too quickly, Mayor Zimmerman and Millstone Borough Mayor Ray Heck said at the time.
Millstone and Rocky Hill had one member from their former boards of education on the Hillsborough and Montgomery boards of education, respectively, but the terms expired after the 2010 school elections. Since no one from Millstone or Rocky Hill ran in the election, neither town has a representative on the respective boards of education.
With fewer than 700 residents in the borough and an estimated 23,000 in Montgomery, Rocky Hill officials have said their residents would have little chance of electing a representative to the school board in the future. Mayor Zimmerman attributed the lack of a candidate in last year’s election to the higher cost of running a larger campaign and what he characterized as the implausibility of a borough candidate winning.
"It would be an exercise in futility," he said.
During the first year of the merger – the 2009-2010 school year – the merged districts were kept on the same payment schedule arranged prior to the merger. In the years following, however, the tax levies for both areas will be determined by an equalized property tax value and by student enrollment.
Specifically, the lawsuit charged the new boards deprived the boroughs’ residents of equal protection under the law as required by the 14th Amendment, that the decision to dissolve the districts was special legislation in violation of state law, and that it taxed affected residents without allowing them representation.
But Judge Accurso said in her decision the state broke no laws when it dissolved districts that had no students and no schools. She wrote that the new districts do not violate equal protection because each resident still gets one vote, even if the size of one municipality can outweigh that of another in the same district.
"Our courts have long recognized the value that plaintiffs espouse in district representation. Nonetheless, there is no constitutional tenet that requires the Legislature to provide for municipal representation in fashioning a school district," she said in her decision.
"Here, there can be no question but that Janine Lacava’s and, indeed, every voter’s vote in the newly constituted districts necessarily counts as much as any other’s, because the voting is ‘at-large,’" she said.
As for the charge of taxation without representation, Judge Accurso pointed out no constitutional rule specifically prohibits that.
"There is no constitutional prohibition against taxation without representation," she said. "Further, however, (the legislation mandating the merger) does not appear to contain the flaw that plaintiffs fear."
For Rocky Hill, she wrote, the 2009-2010 school year’s financial split was on par with earlier years, and that formula is to be kept with none of Montgomery’s old debt burdening Rocky Hill residents. Rocky Hill has no debt, and any new debt is to be split between the two municipalities according to the funding formula.
"Most importantly for the concern expressed by plaintiffs that they will suffer taxation without representation, the formulas may not be modified by an at-large vote of the new merged districts," Judge Accurso added.
Finally, the suit claimed the legislation violated an article of the state constitution by excluding particular municipalities from being involved with and managing the public schools to which they send their children. But Judge Accurso wrote, "A review of the law of prohibited special legislation, however, reveals the argument to be without merit."
Mayor Zimmerman said this week he had no problem with the judge’s constitutional reasoning. But he did say he believed the legislation should now be considered special legislation since half of the non-operating school districts in the state have been exempted from the new law. Rocky Hill may file an appeal, but Mayor Zimmerman called that option "a long shot just because of the cost." The borough is now taking a different approach to the matter, namely a legislative one.
On Tuesday, Mayor Zimmerman will appear at the Mary Jacobs Memorial Library with state Sen. Christopher "Kip" Bateman and County Executive Superintendent of Schools Trudy Doyle. Mayor Zimmerman said they will meet with the public to discuss legislation Sen. Bateman is planning a proposal that would "correct tax fairness" the merger put out of balance. The forum will run from 7 to 9 p.m.
While taxes only increased slightly for borough residents after the merger, Mayor Zimmerman said after the changes Rocky Hill homeowners have ended up paying about $2,500 more per child than Montgomery residents. He said the boroughs are proposing to divide the tax levy, less old debt, by the number of students and dividing it up by population.
"The Department of Education doesn’t seem to have problem with that, it just has to be done legislatively," he said.
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