Legislators Seek $3.5 Billion for School Construction

Legislators Seek $3.5 Billion for School Construction—Web Extra

State legislators are proceeding with plans to borrow $3.5 billion for school construction, largely for urban schools, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.

The Senate Budget Committee will consider a measure to authorize the state’s Economic Development Authority to borrow $2.5 billion for urban schools, $750 million for other schools and $250 million for county vocational schools.

Those funds would restart a state Supreme Court-ordered school construction program in the state’s Abbott school districts.

There has been opposition to the borrowing from proponents of a constitutional amendment mandating voter approval of state borrowing, who believe all new borrowing should be delayed until after a general election vote on the amendment.

The Abbott school construction requirement stems from a 1998 ruling in the ongoing Abbott v. Burke case, in which the state Supreme Court ordered that the state, among other things, must fully fund school construction in the special needs districts. To meet this requirement, the state enacted the Educational Facilities Construction and Financing Act of 2000, which allotted $6 billion in funds to pay for construction in Abbott districts (as well as another $2.6 billion to cover a minimum of 40 percent of school construction in all other districts). However, those funds were largely depleted by late 2005, and a number of Abbott projects remained unfinished.

Last January, the state Supreme Court declined to rule on a request by the Education Law Center that the court set deadlines for the state to complete the school construction after the Corzine administration indicated that it would seek passage of legislation to allot funds for the construction.