Abbott school funding heads
back to state Supreme Court
Wednesday, April 26, 2006 • By DUNSTAN McNICHOL• The
Star-Ledger Staff
The long-running battle over how much the state should pay for public
school funding in Newark and other needy communities will land in
the state Supreme Court again next week.
The court, which attempted to settle the school funding issue eight
years ago, will hear arguments Tuesday in a dispute between the schools
and the Corzine administration over hundreds of millions of dollars
in state aid.
Gov. Jon Corzine's state budget essentially holds
aid to the 32 "special needs" districts covered by the court's Abbott
vs. Burke decision flat at $4.2 billion. This is a key element of
Corzine's attempt to rein in state spending and balance the budget.
But lawyers for the poor schools claim in court papers that the
proposal will force "severe and drastic cuts." They say the budget-balancing
will translate into fired teachers, new school buildings idled because
of a lack of staff, and lost opportunities for thousands of disadvantaged
students.
"The state's 'flat' FY 2007 budget proposal ... is unprecedented;
is wholly lacking in evidentiary support or legal justification and
will force districts to make significant cuts in existing programs,
staff and services to the Abbott school children," the Education Law
Center, a Newark nonprofit organization that has pressed the Abbott
case for more than three decades, said in a brief filed with the Supreme
Court.
Newark filed its own appeal, threatening deep program cuts under
Corzine's plan at a time that it claimed almost all signs in student
and school performance are improving, from test scores to the learning
environment inside the buildings themselves.
In court papers, Newark Superintendent Marion Bolden said the state
is demanding costs be further curtailed even though state officials
signed off on significant new expenses, including a teachers' contract
that locked in salary increases of 5 percent to 6 percent.
"Many of our cost increases are the direct result of my discussions
with and directives from various commissioners I have reported to
in my tenure," Bolden said in her certification.
Attorney General Zulima Farber, in a state brief seeking the court's
approval of Corzine's budget plan, said the flat funding is needed
in light of New Jersey's deep fiscal problems. Saying the state cannot
afford to pour more aid into the Abbott communities, Farber promised
intensive audits of the four largest Abbott districts: Newark, Paterson,
Jersey City and Camden.
"Each year, spending requests for supplemental funding have gone
up exponentially in Abbott districts," the state's brief says. "However,
we have not seen a corresponding increase, or even a significant increase,
in educational achievement."
Attorneys for the Abbott districts say there is nothing new in the
arguments Corzine plans to bring to the court next week.
"To the Abbott districts, the state's application, in the tortured
neologism of Yogi Berra, is 'déjà vu, all over again,'"
Richard Shapiro, attorney for 16 of the Abbott communities, said in
a brief he filed with the court last week.
Both Shapiro and David Sciarra, the attorney arguing the case for
the Education Law Center, say the state has reneged on promises in
the past to put in place procedures to evaluate the success of Abbott
programs and to help local communities justify their spending requests.
Earlier this year, until days before Corzine released his proposed
$30.9 billion budget on March 21, the Department of Education had
told the Abbott districts to expect a 4.04 percent cost-of-living
increase in their state aid. That would have added almost $170 million
in new expenses to Corzine's proposed budget.
In initial budget requests submitted to the state before Corzine's
budget strategy was announced, the Abbott districts sought a total
increase of $550 million in state aid, records filed by the state
show.