School Funding Report - New Jersey League of Municipalities

Today, League President Robert Bowser, Mayor of East Orange, Mayor Jun Choi of Edison, Chair of the Mayors’ School Funding Committee, and 20 other Mayors throughout the State issued their report of recommendations for school funding to the Governor and State Legislature.

Mayor Randy Brown, Evesham Twp., and Member of League Executive Board, Robert Bowser, League President and Mayor of East Orange Township, Mayor Jun Choi, Edison Twp., and Chairman of Leagues Mayor’s Committee on School Funding, Mayor Joe Chila, Woolwich Twp., and Member of League Executive Board

Governor Corzine speaks at League Retreat for Mayors committee on School funding on Dec. 8, 2007

The report focuses on fiscal responsibility, accountability and sound investments in educational programs that work and the elimination of programs that don’t work. The Mayors believe strongly that New Jersey must continue to make education a top priority and the State must make long-term, broad-based property tax relief an explicit goal of the revised school funding formula. The highlights include:

New Jersey must make public education a top priority and the proper investment must be made to continuously improve quality.
New Jersey must recognize the achievement gains made in Abbott programs and not roll back the investment to provide high-quality educational opportunities for the most disadvantaged. However, greater attention should be given to Abbott programs that are not effective, and rededicating those funds into programs that work.
The Administration, Legislature and key stakeholders should have a thoughtful and comprehensive discussion around school funding before enacting a revised formula.
New Jersey must recognize that we face a serious and unsolved structural fiscal deficit that threatens any revision to the school funding formula: structural operating deficit estimated to be $3.0 billion a year; $32.0 billion general obligation debt, and at least $25.0 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and $55.0 billion in unfunded retiree health benefits.
The State must recognize that any school funding formula will be predictable and sustainable only if the short and long-term structural deficit is fixed.
All options must be considered to close the State’s short- and long-term structural deficit including the elimination of educational and other public programs that are not working.
The revised school funding formula should be fair, predictable, transparent and constitutional, and be based on the educational needs of each individual student.
The State needs to place a greater focus on developing a stronger relationship between student achievement -- growth and continuous improvement indicators -- and spending.
Special education aid should remain categorical and should not be wealth-equalized in whole or in part.
School districts and municipalities, working with the Executive County Superintendents, should better coordinate shared service opportunities.
The State should recognize the societal and economic gains from a high-quality early childhood program for at-risk and middle-income children. The State should expand high-quality early childhood programs for at-risk children with State funding and for other children based on a local-option sliding-scale fee. Eliminate educational programs that are not as effective and efficient to offset the increased costs of an expanded early childhood program.

The members of the Mayors’ School Funding Committee are a unique group of elected officials interested in improving education in their own communities in an effective and efficient manner. They represent a diverse group of communities – large, small, urban, suburban, rural, Abbott, non-Abbott, North, Central and South Jersey, and bipartisan – throughout the State interested in seeking policy consensus around public education.

They recognize that as New Jersey’s largest public investment, public education plays a central role in the quality of life of their own communities. They also seek to build consensus with the education community.

For more information regarding the proposed school funding formula, including school district-by-district numbers, please visit the NJ Department of Education website at http://www.state.nj.us/education/sff/.