By Stephanie Vaccaro, Staff Writer
MONTGOMERY An exchange of letters and a bit of a clash of ideas has occurred between state Sen. Michael Doherty and school Superintendent Earl Kim.
In a letter dated June 8, Senator Doherty wrote to Mr. Kim trying to enlist his support “in an effort to restore equity into the distribution of state aid to schools.”
”Your school district is one of the many that are unfairly treated by the state when school aid dollars are appropriated,” wrote Senator Doherty. “I have determined that your town only gets back $0.03 for each dollar it sends to Trenton. I have researched our income tax revenue projections for next year and have found that if those revenues were distributed equally to each student, it would equate to $7,481 per child.”
Senator Doherty projected that his school funding legislation would increase state aid from $1.87 million to $37.5 million annually.
To which, Mr. Kim declined his support in a letter dated June 16 by saying the senator’s proposal does not meet the principles of fairness and justice.
”It stands to reason that a student with greater needs should get additional funding to support programs that would level the playing field for that child this is Rawlsian fairness,” wrote Mr. Kim. “Moreover, if looked at another way, from an efficiency standpoint, the research is pretty clear that the return on investment to a child who is lesser advantaged is far greater than the return on a dollar spent on an advantaged child.”
On June 22, Senator Doherty responded by saying, “Your school gets screwed on school aid. Your residents pay $70.8 million into the income tax fund and you get $2.6 million back for school aid.”
He went on to say, “Why don’t you fight for your students?”
”The goal of my plan is that you would give money back to the taxpayers in the form of lower property taxes,” wrote Senator Doherty.
At its June 28 meeting, the Montgomery Township Board of Education decided that the best response is no response.
”We have gotten a few letters of support from staff and parents in the community, but I do know that somebody forwarded to me an email that’s going around town from the tea party families,” said Mr. Kim at the meeting.
”You were very brave to do what you did,” said board member Christine Abrahams to Mr. Kim.
”I didn’t do anything,” said Mr. Kim. “I just wrote him a letter.”
”I think we met our obligation to the community, which was to make sure that all of the information that’s out there that we knew about was shared and let them come to their own conclusions,” said Andrea Bradley, board member. “I don’t think that we need to continue to stoke the fire and take polarizing positions. I think it was proactive of us to send that all out. I think it was good and I think if other people want to write letters in support then they ought to, but I wouldn’t see us as an organization continuing to positions on this.”
”I think that the lesson that he’s teaching children is look out for yourself and don’t care for those who are less able to look out for themselves,” said Ms. Bradley. “To me, I think it’s really a sad lesson.”
The text of the letters is available at www.mtsd.k12.nj.us.
