Dear NJSBA Member:

The time to act is now. Senate and Assembly votes on the special session bills may begin as early as next week. Let us assure you that, on most issues, the Legislature plans to move full steam ahead, with no intention of taking a break during the pre-holiday period.

The next two weeks, therefore, present the final opportunity for school board members and other education advocates to voice their opposition to many of the proposals.

Action will start on Thursday, Dec. 7, when the Joint Legislative Committee on Consolidation and Shared Services considers a bill (A-4/S-42) that would strip school boards of authority in finance, human resources and governance. Action by the joint committee would send the bill to the Senate and Assembly for final votes.

Critical Message It’s time to get a critical message to lawmakers:

• This bill will do nothing to rein in property taxes.
  
  
• It might result in cost increases.
  
  
• It will hurt education.

Political County Superintendents NJSBA will testify at the Dec. 7 meeting. But legislators – all of whom may soon be voting on the bill – need to hear from you. Creating politically appointed “super county superintendents” with near-dictatorial power over local school district budgets and with control over purchasing and aspects of human resources will do nothing to reform property taxes. Instead, it would:

• Create a bloated county-level bureaucracy.
  
  
• Increase costs by wiping out savings achieved by individual local school districts.
  
  
• Distance education policy from parents and voters.

November Elections Moving board member elections from April to November – another part of A-4/S-42 – would have no bearing on property tax rates at all. However, it would subject local education matters to the same partisan political environment in which legislators operate.

Veto Power Classroom programming, meanwhile, could fall victim to a structure, also part of A-4/S-42, that would give the super county superintendent veto power over communities’ ability to voluntarily increase educational expenditures through above-cap ballot questions. This veto power comes on top of a proposal from another joint committee to impose “hard” budget caps that would provide no adjustments for costs that are out of local school districts’ control.

The Real Problem A-4/S-42 and many other special session proposals are red herrings that detract from the real cause of high property taxes: inadequate state aid to public education.

Since 2002, the state has short-changed communities nearly $1 billion a year in school aid. Local property taxes had to fill in the gap. The yearly under funding only worsened New Jersey’s chronic overuse of property taxes to pay for schools. National Education Association statistics place New Jersey state government’s share of public school expenses at just over 38 percent of the total education costs. Other states, on average, pay close to half the costs.

Despite these facts, school boards—not state officials—have been painted as the villains in the Statehouse property tax drama.

Your Association will continue speaking up for local school boards and school children during this intense period of legislative activity. But you also must sound your voices.

We urge you to contact your legislators, join in NJSBA’s plan of action, and express your concerns to parents and concerned citizens. For assistance, contact NJSBA’s Governmental Relations Department at (888) 886-5722, ext. 5215. Visit www.njsba.org/govrel/specialsession for information and resources.

Sincerely,

Kevin E. Ciak, President

Eva M. Nagy, Vice President for Legislation/Resolutions