District
claims aid short by $3 million
Warren Hills officials instruct
attorney to examine possible action against state.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005 • By ANDREA EILENBERGER
• The Express-Times
Warren Hills Regional School District
officials are investigating what board members believe is a
shortage of more than $3 million in state funding since
2002.
After reviewing funding legislation,
board of education members instructed attorney James
Broscious to determine what, if any, course of action the
district can take against the state.
"At this point, I will be evaluating the
situation, formulating a course of action and taking it back
to the board," Broscious said.
At a state superintendent association
meeting in June, Superintendent Peter Merluzzi reviewed a
report listing Comprehensive Education Improvement Funding
Act calculations throughout the state. The CEIFA
calculations determine the amount of funding each district
receives from the state. The formula is based on several
factors, including property values, aggregate income,
student enrollment and other parameters, according to the
state Department of Education.
"When (the report) was put in front of
me, I realized what a substantial amount of money it was,"
Merluzzi said, about the amount of state funding his
district didn't receive. He shared the information with the
board of education during a meeting earlier this month,
which then instructed Broscious to begin researching the
issue.
The report showed CEIFA calculations over
the past three years for each district in the state and
compared those figures to the amount of funding each
received -- and many didn't match up, Merluzzi
said.
Under CEIFA, the district should have
received $3,145,676 more in state funding between 2002 and
2005, Merluzzi said.
According to the report, Warren Hills
should have received $1,265,083 more during the 200203
school year; $1,119,553 more during the 2003-04 school year;
$761,040 more during the 200405 school year.
The district received about $9.8 million
in state funding each year since 2003.
"Our whole legislative district is short
more than $10 million in funding, and we're almost a third
of that total," Merluzzi said. "Some districts were even
worse than us but others received more."
Merluzzi said he doesn't expect to see
the $3 million returned to the district, but intends to get
to the bottom of the matter.
"The issue is that it seems there is a
law that has not been followed, and we hope to have the
state either follow the law or change it," he
said.
The district's budget is already tight,
and officials were forced to make cuts after the proposed
spending plan was defeated in April.
Officials are already frustrated with the
state's flat funding measure, a move that gives districts
the same amount of money in any state assistance category as
in the previous year.
"If you're a district who's had
enrollment increases, it's going to cost you more to run
your operations," said board President James Momary.
"Essentially, what they're telling you to do is cut the
budget somehow to accommodate these increases."
With the steady enrollment increases and
rising operation costs, Momary said flat funding is really
costing the district.
Student population at Warren Hills has
been increasing by about 50 students a year, Merluzzi
said.
"It is a substantial amount of money that
our taxpayers will end up absorbing as a result of not
getting the funding," he said. "If we had received all of
it, it's possible that things could have been a little
different."
Reporter Andrea Eilenberger can be reached at
908-475-8044 or by e-mail at aeilenberger@express-times.com.
© 2005 The Express-Times. Used with
permission.
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