School aid plan adds at least 2% for every district Corzine expected to discuss details today Wednesday, December 12, 2007 • BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL • Star-Ledger Staff Gov. Jon Corzine's long-awaited plan for handing out more than $8 billion in state school aid will include a boost of at least 2 percent for every community, according to people briefed on the new plan. Two weeks after revealing the framework for his new funding program, Corzine today is scheduled to offer a district-by-district breakdown of where the money will flow under his retooled system. Corzine has said publicly that up to two-thirds of the state's 618 school districts will see a marked increase in aid under his plan. At the urging of lawmakers, he also has agreed to add a 2 percent sweetener for the 200 or so communities that would otherwise lose funds under the new formula, according to lawmakers and lobbyists briefed by administration officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the details were not yet public. Corzine will publicly unveil them this afternoon at an elementary school in Burlington Township. Before and after that, he'll be personally briefing legislators, representatives of school districts and other interested parties at the governor's mansion in Princeton. For lawmakers hoping to vote on the new school funding plan before Jan. 8, when the current legislative session ends, today's presentation can be boiled down to four words: "Show me the money." But even across-the-board increases in state aid will do little to mollify critics of Corzine's new funding approach. They claim this year's supplemental aid will only mask the impact of a formula that will ultimately sap aid from the state's poorest and wealthiest communities to bolster middle-income communities. "It would be nice to see what would happen after the first year -- who will lose money," said David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, a Newark nonprofit that has pressed the long-running Abbott vs. Burke lawsuit. To comply with state Supreme Court rulings in that case, the state sends more than half its school aid to 31 "special needs" districts in mostly urban areas. Corzine's plan seeks to break away from the focus on specific districts and instead direct aid based on the needs of students. It would set new guidelines for "adequate" per-pupil spending, and provide higher funding for districts with large concentrations of students from low-income families or with limited English skills. The governor's proposal also includes the first substantial changes in decades to the way the state hands out about $1 billion in special education aid. Corzine plans to focus two-thirds of that funding on the state's poorer communities -- a prospect that concerns wealthy towns, which currently get special education aid based solely on the number of special needs students they enroll and the costs they incur for educating them. Separately yesterday, a state appeals court granted Sciarra access to background materials that state officials used to develop the school funding proposal, and chided the state for its secrecy. "The desire to withhold the document at this time bespeaks a lack of confidence in the ability of our citizens to digest and analyze the potential consequences of the choices the State must make," the court wrote. Yesterday Corzine dismissed such criticism, saying the process of devising the new funding formula has played out in public and private for more than a year. "There's not a given Legislature that has ever been more exposed to this topic than this group," he said yesterday. "They haven't seen the numbers because we didn't have all the different population numbers. We have those, we're cranking them out." Christopher Manno, superintendent of schools in Burlington Township, said he was resisting the temptation to assume that the selection of his community for the governor's announcement portends a generous increase in state aid for him. But a state consultant's report released last year showed that Burlington was spending 14 percent below what experts deemed would be needed to adequately fund the community's schools. "Certainly, as every district, we would be very pleased if the support would be increased," said Manno. Dunstan McNichol may be reached at dmcnichol@starledger.com or (609) 989-0341. © 2007 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission.