Thursday, September 07, 2006 •
BY TOM HESTER • Star-Ledger Staff
New Jersey spends 10 percent of its
school dollars -- $1,235 per student -- on administrative costs.
In Maryland, the figure is less than 3 percent.
Whether looking at average per- pupil
spending or the percentage of property taxes that go to fund schools,
New Jersey outspends Maryland by a significant amount for one key
reason: New Jersey has 611 school districts; Maryland has 24, one
for each county.
The crash course on how Maryland
operates its schools was provided to the Joint Legislative Committee
on Government Consolidation and Shared Services in Tren ton yesterday
by Maryland Assistant State Superintendent of Education Mary E.
Clapsaddle via videoconference.
It delighted Sen. Bob Smith (D- Middlesex),
the panel's co-chairman, who wants to create 21 coun tywide school
districts to oversee local schools, eliminate hundreds of high-paid
administration positions and consolidate purchasing and transportation.
"When we look at the numbers, Maryland's
population and demographics are not too far off from our own," Smith
said. "They have fewer students in schools, but they actually have
more kids enrolled in the federal school lunch program, indicating
a higher level of poverty. When you look at the spending sta tistics,
however, Maryland and New Jersey are like night and day."
When told by Assemblyman Jo seph
Malone (R-Burlington) that New Jersey spends 10 percent of its school
funding on administrative costs, Clapsaddle replied, "That is alarming."
Maryland spends 2.68 percent -- or $240 per student -- on administrative
costs, she said.
New Jersey spends $12,567 on average
to educate a child, compared with $9,200 in Maryland.
New Jersey taxpayers see an average
of 51 percent of their property taxes go toward school funding.
In some school districts, it is as high as 88 percent. In Maryland,
24.6 percent of property taxes is used to finance schools.
New Jersey spends $16 billion for
public schools; Maryland, $8 billion.
"There is the potential for seri
ous savings," Smith said following the hearing. He said he wants
to see the committee propose a school district consolidation bill
within a month.
The committee also heard about an
example of consolidating municipal governments, but it held less
promise of savings.
Enid Slack, a professor and municipal
finance and government ex pert at the University of Toronto, told
the panel via videoconference how more than a dozen suburbs were
consolidated with the Canadian city between 1954 and 1998.
"The rational for the consolidation
was to reduce the cost of government," Slack said, but it didn't
work out that way. When six police departments combined, she said,
the officers demanded they receive the highest salary among them.
In some cases, property taxes increased when towns combined. She
said the chief benefit was improved planning and municipal services.
William Dressel, director of the
New Jersey State League of Municipalities, said Slack's comments
confirm his position that consolidating local government does not
produce major tax savings. "In fact, the Toronto experience indicates
salaries actually increased because when salaries were blended they
went to highest salary scale," Dressel said.
The government consolidation committee
is one of four special legislative panels created to propose ways
by Nov. 15 to lower property taxes.