Democrats attack Christie's spending plan for schools

TRENTON - Democratic legislators attacked Gov. Christie's spending plan for schools Tuesday, arguing, in a reversal of roles, that the proposal would hurt middle-class suburban school districts.

"If this budget is passed, it will completely dismantle the school funding formula," said Senate Majority Leader Barbara Buono (D., Middlesex) during a meeting of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee on the Department of Education. "There's not even a pretense that you're just tinkering with it. This is a complete dismantling."

Christie's proposed budget would reduce aid to schools by $820 million, in large part because more than $1 billion in federal stimulus funds last year will not be repeated.

Christie's education commissioner, Bret Schundler, argued that state support to school districts would actually increase by $238 million, or 2.4 percent in the fiscal year that begins July 1, although overall, school districts will lose 7.4 percent of their state and federal funding.

Under Christie's proposed budget, most school districts will see state aid cut by no more than 5 percent of their overall budgets.

Democrats pointed out that districts that received 5 percent or less of their funding from the state this year would lose all of their state funding next year.

Sen. Paul Sarlo (D., Bergen), chairman of the budget committee, said 41 percent of the state aid to districts in Bergen County was cut; more than a third of school districts statewide would see their state aid reduced by more than 50 percent; and 60 of about 600 school districts would receive no direct state funding.

Several of the lawmakers on the panel, including Sarlo, criticized Schundler for the way he communicated with school districts about proposed cuts. School districts had expected state-aid cuts of up to 15 percent but could, in fact, see 100 percent cuts.

For years, New Jersey funneled a disproportionate amount of state school aid to 31 urban and impoverished school districts, known as Abbott districts, in the aftermath of the state Supreme Court's ruling in the Abbott v. Burke lawsuit. As governor, Jon S. Corzine overhauled the school funding system to direct more state aid to middle-class districts, saying that funding should follow the neediest students no matter where they lived.

Christie's budget would direct a greater proportion of state aid to the former Abbott districts than Corzine's formula, Buono said.

"What this budget does is take a quantum leap backward to a time before we had a funding formula," Buono said. "This budget, if passed as is, would go back to a time when our aid was distributed on an ad hoc basis."

Buono said the former Abbott districts would receive about 60 percent of the state aid to schools under Christie's proposed budget, compared with 55.6 percent this year, including preschool aid.

Schundler told the committee that New Jersey spends an average of more than $19,000 per pupil, one of the highest amounts nationwide. That figure includes benefits such as health-care coverage for retired school employees.

He said school boards and superintendents were not to blame for those high costs, nor were most current legislators. Instead he blamed previous lawmakers, who in years past promised public employees rich compensation without considering their full costs.

The administration anticipates school property taxes throughout the state will increase 3 to 4 percent to offset the lost federal funding.

"That's a much smaller year-to-year increase than has been typical in the past 10 years, but remember: A lot of homeowners have lost their jobs, and even many of those who haven't are still suffering from sharply reduced incomes," Schundler said.

Christie has called on school districts to reopen contracts with teachers and other employees to seek concessions, including wage freezes, to avoid layoffs. Earlier this week, the governor urged voters in elections next Tuesday to reject any school-budget proposal that does not include a wage freeze.

If all the education unions agreed to salary freezes, Christie says, the savings could offset much of the loss of federal aid.

According to the state Department of Education, 20 school districts statewide had teachers agree to either a wage freeze or pay reduction, as of last Thursday. In 141 school districts, administrators, support staff, and/or teachers had agreed to such concessions.

According to a Rutgers-Eagleton Poll released Tuesday, 57 percent of New Jerseyans, despite calling for state budget cuts, do not want state aid to local schools to be reduced. An even larger proportion - 72 percent - opposes making teacher layoffs easier. The same percentage opposes increasing taxes or fees to close the budget gap.