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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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This thread has focused on Jersey City possibly losing $100 million in aid in order to allow redistribution of aid to needier districts, but it's also very possible that Jersey City can lose aid due to the state's overall f****d up fiscal situation or a loss in Berg v Christie (the NJ Supreme Court case over suspending COLA payments.)

The Office of Legislative Services has just announced that NJ's revenues will run $1.1 billion below expectations for FY2016 and FY2017, mostly due to a shortfall in income taxes.

http://www.dailyprogress.com/new-jers ... 10-a7e8-a17d81fc6067.html

NJ can and must raise taxes, but I don't know how we deal with this without cutting services and aid too (unless we reduce pension contributions again). Since education aid is a quarter of the state budget, there's no way NJ can realistically make significant cuts without cutting education aid.

And if we cut education aid, is it fair to treat districts who only get 20% of their SFRA aid the same as districts who get 150% of their SFRA aid? Resized Image

Posted on: 2016/5/18 14:51
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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Important paragraphs in the story:

The Senate President said at the time that the proposal will likely leave some school districts unhappy.

"We are making sure that we get it right before we unveil it for one reason: It will be controversial," he told NJAM. "It will be fair, but you are going to have people, some happy, some unhappy."

My guess JC will be in the unhappy category.

Posted on: 2016/5/14 16:42
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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FYI

Sweeney was in Bayonne yesterday. When Assemblyman Nicholas Chiaravalloti asked Sweeney about helping Bayonne in its severe budget problems, Sweeney said that he wanted to and was very close to releasing his state aid reform bill.

Sweeney and Beck haven't been consistent about how much Adjustment Aid they want to redistribute, but according to his comments yesterday, they want to redistribute all of it. (though gradually)

I would love to Chiaravalloti's stance on this since he also represents part of Jersey City.


http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... la.html#incart_river_home

Posted on: 2016/5/14 15:53
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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Quote:

SOS wrote:
It's scary to think that Yvonne was once a school teacher. Her grammar is atrocious. Mine may be also, but I was never a teacher. A couple of examples:

Quote:

Yvonne wrote:
Actually, we pay 17% which is $114 million of the budget. In 2005 we pay $72 million which was 13% of the school budget.


Quote:

Yvonne wrote:
I was talking to a tax lawyer who basically do condo work all over NJ. ...

She was NOT a public school teacher which has vastly higher standards than where she taught.

Posted on: 2016/5/13 16:29
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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It's scary to think that Yvonne was once a school teacher. Her grammar is atrocious. Mine may be also, but I was never a teacher. A couple of examples:

Quote:

Yvonne wrote:
Actually, we pay 17% which is $114 million of the budget. In 2005 we pay $72 million which was 13% of the school budget.


Quote:

Yvonne wrote:
I was talking to a tax lawyer who basically do condo work all over NJ. ...

Posted on: 2016/5/13 16:23
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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brewster wrote:
Quote:

stateaidguy wrote:
Quote:

brewster wrote:

I could be oversimplifying this, but what I do know is the charters manage do more for far less, even the ones with union teachers, like LCCS. That's not advocating that the system be replaced by charters, but that they learn from them.


I'm glad you mentioned charters because Jersey City charters, ironically, are disadvantaged by the fact that Jersey City receives so much Adjustment Aid.

Charter school funding is more complex than state aid, but charter schools founded after 2008 (when SFRA was passed), do not receive Adjustment Aid.

I'm not 100% why this is. I don't know if it was legislative oversight, NJEA influence, a sincere belief that since Adjustment Aid was "hold harmless aid" that new schools didn't need to be held harmless since they had not existed pre-SFRA in the first place.

Anyway, as a consequence of Jersey City's non-transference of Adjustment Aid to charter schools, some of Jersey City's charters are among the lowest funded in NJ.

The following are NJ's 15 lowest spending charter schools.

School Per Pupil Spending 2015-16
BRIDGETON PUBLIC CHARTER $9,276
JC GREAT FUTURES CHARTER SCH $9,197
COLLEGE ACHIEVE CENTRAL C $9,177
JC THE ETHICAL COMMUNITY CHA $8,947
JC JERSEY CITY COMMUNITY CHA $8,894
INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF $8,845
RIVERBANK CHARTER SCHOOL $8,682
HOBOKEN DUAL LANGUAGE CHA $8,677
THOMAS EDISON ENERGYSMART $8,395
MILLVILLE PUBLIC CHARTER $7,943
JC JERSEY CITY GLOBAL CS $7,838
JC EMPOWERMENT ACADEMY CHART $7,744
COMPASS ACADEMY CHARTER S $7,653
JC LEARNING COMMUNITY CHARTE $7,541
VINELAND PUBLIC CHARTER S $7,435

Some of the other lowest spending charters are also in big Adjustment Aid districts, like Vineland. (who gets $34 mil in Adjustment Aid), Millville (who gets $12.5 mil in Adjustment Aid), Hoboken ($5.6 mil in Adjustment Aid)

Some of the other lowest spending charters are in very low spending poor non-Abbotts and thus the host districts have very little to transfer to charters in the first place.

Anti-charter people always point out that charters have fewer poor kids than district schools, and that's true on average, but JC's low-spending charters can have pretty high FRL rates too. Several are above the JC district schools' average.

Beloved Community is 83% FRL (for 2013-14). Ethical Community is 32%. JC Community Charter is 85% FRL. Learning Community is 35% FRL. (I couldn't find Great Futures.)

If Jersey City's Adjustment Aid were gradually replaced by local taxes, JC's charter schools would come closer to matching the spending of JC's district schools. (my guess is that JC's leadership would rather change the charter funding law than the state aid distribution, which is also reasonable from their perspective.)

Again, charter school funding is very complex, but since post-2008 charters don't get Adjustment Aid, JC's charters are disadvantaged by the status quo.


More fascinating info. I might point out that Learning Community, where my kids attended, is near the bottom of the funding list, but was founded in the 90's. It's one of the highest performing k-8's in the city on a fraction of the funds while it is also paying it's own mortgage on it's building.


Charter funding is more complex than state aid and I seldom comment on it because I don't fully understand it. I do not want to guess why the Learning Community CS is so low spending; maybe it does get some of JC's Adjustment Aid after all or maybe the mortgage payments are very large proportionally.

This is the best document I've read on charter school funding. The author is staunchly anti-charter, but the document isn't polemical. (though the Red Bank CS is very unusual in having more money than its host district.)

https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/47968/

"Conversely, some charter schools that are not eligible for Adjustment Aid from the State because they were created after 2008, are receiving less funding than they would if the administration allocated Aid based on SFRA rather than relying
so heavily on Adjustment Aid. ...."

"The three [big charter] districts that would continue to receive Adjustment Aid under SFRA ?East Orange, Hoboken and Jersey City ? are not eligible for additional Equalization Aid or Categorical Aid to completely replace the Adjustment Aid that they receive. If those districts were able to increase their local school taxes, the charter schools that draw students from those districts would receive additional funding (because local school taxes are included in charter school revenue transfer calculations)."

If you would like to learn more about how low spending some Hudson County charters are, check out this document.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d ... mbOmUc/edit#gid=513475747

Posted on: 2016/5/13 15:28
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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Quote:

stateaidguy wrote:
Quote:

brewster wrote:

I could be oversimplifying this, but what I do know is the charters manage do more for far less, even the ones with union teachers, like LCCS. That's not advocating that the system be replaced by charters, but that they learn from them.


I'm glad you mentioned charters because Jersey City charters, ironically, are disadvantaged by the fact that Jersey City receives so much Adjustment Aid.

Charter school funding is more complex than state aid, but charter schools founded after 2008 (when SFRA was passed), do not receive Adjustment Aid.

I'm not 100% why this is. I don't know if it was legislative oversight, NJEA influence, a sincere belief that since Adjustment Aid was "hold harmless aid" that new schools didn't need to be held harmless since they had not existed pre-SFRA in the first place.

Anyway, as a consequence of Jersey City's non-transference of Adjustment Aid to charter schools, some of Jersey City's charters are among the lowest funded in NJ.

The following are NJ's 15 lowest spending charter schools.

School Per Pupil Spending 2015-16
BRIDGETON PUBLIC CHARTER $9,276
JC GREAT FUTURES CHARTER SCH $9,197
COLLEGE ACHIEVE CENTRAL C $9,177
JC THE ETHICAL COMMUNITY CHA $8,947
JC JERSEY CITY COMMUNITY CHA $8,894
INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF $8,845
RIVERBANK CHARTER SCHOOL $8,682
HOBOKEN DUAL LANGUAGE CHA $8,677
THOMAS EDISON ENERGYSMART $8,395
MILLVILLE PUBLIC CHARTER $7,943
JC JERSEY CITY GLOBAL CS $7,838
JC EMPOWERMENT ACADEMY CHART $7,744
COMPASS ACADEMY CHARTER S $7,653
JC LEARNING COMMUNITY CHARTE $7,541
VINELAND PUBLIC CHARTER S $7,435

Some of the other lowest spending charters are also in big Adjustment Aid districts, like Vineland. (who gets $34 mil in Adjustment Aid), Millville (who gets $12.5 mil in Adjustment Aid), Hoboken ($5.6 mil in Adjustment Aid)

Some of the other lowest spending charters are in very low spending poor non-Abbotts and thus the host districts have very little to transfer to charters in the first place.

Anti-charter people always point out that charters have fewer poor kids than district schools, and that's true on average, but JC's low-spending charters can have pretty high FRL rates too. Several are above the JC district schools' average.

Beloved Community is 83% FRL (for 2013-14). Ethical Community is 32%. JC Community Charter is 85% FRL. Learning Community is 35% FRL. (I couldn't find Great Futures.)

If Jersey City's Adjustment Aid were gradually replaced by local taxes, JC's charter schools would come closer to matching the spending of JC's district schools. (my guess is that JC's leadership would rather change the charter funding law than the state aid distribution, which is also reasonable from their perspective.)

Again, charter school funding is very complex, but since post-2008 charters don't get Adjustment Aid, JC's charters are disadvantaged by the status quo.


More fascinating info. I might point out that Learning Community, where my kids attended, is near the bottom of the funding list, but was founded in the 90's. It's one of the highest performing k-8's in the city on a fraction of the funds while it is also paying it's own mortgage on it's building.

Posted on: 2016/5/13 14:57
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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Quote:

brewster wrote:

I could be oversimplifying this, but what I do know is the charters manage do more for far less, even the ones with union teachers, like LCCS. That's not advocating that the system be replaced by charters, but that they learn from them.


I'm glad you mentioned charters because Jersey City charters, ironically, are disadvantaged by the fact that Jersey City receives so much Adjustment Aid.

Charter school funding is more complex than state aid, but charter schools founded after 2008 (when SFRA was passed), do not receive Adjustment Aid.

I'm not 100% why this is. I don't know if it was legislative oversight, NJEA influence, a sincere belief that since Adjustment Aid was "hold harmless aid" that new schools didn't need to be held harmless since they had not existed pre-SFRA in the first place.

Anyway, as a consequence of Jersey City's non-transference of Adjustment Aid to charter schools, some of Jersey City's charters are among the lowest funded in NJ.

The following are NJ's 15 lowest spending charter schools.

School Per Pupil Spending 2015-16
BRIDGETON PUBLIC CHARTER $9,276
JC GREAT FUTURES CHARTER SCH $9,197
COLLEGE ACHIEVE CENTRAL C $9,177
JC THE ETHICAL COMMUNITY CHA $8,947
JC JERSEY CITY COMMUNITY CHA $8,894
INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF $8,845
RIVERBANK CHARTER SCHOOL $8,682
HOBOKEN DUAL LANGUAGE CHA $8,677
THOMAS EDISON ENERGYSMART $8,395
MILLVILLE PUBLIC CHARTER $7,943
JC JERSEY CITY GLOBAL CS $7,838
JC EMPOWERMENT ACADEMY CHART $7,744
COMPASS ACADEMY CHARTER S $7,653
JC LEARNING COMMUNITY CHARTE $7,541
VINELAND PUBLIC CHARTER S $7,435

Some of the other lowest spending charters are also in big Adjustment Aid districts, like Vineland. (who gets $34 mil in Adjustment Aid), Millville (who gets $12.5 mil in Adjustment Aid), Hoboken ($5.6 mil in Adjustment Aid)

Some of the other lowest spending charters are in very low spending poor non-Abbotts and thus the host districts have very little to transfer to charters in the first place.

Anti-charter people always point out that charters have fewer poor kids than district schools, and that's true on average, but JC's low-spending charters can have pretty high FRL rates too. Several are above the JC district schools' average.

Beloved Community is 83% FRL (for 2013-14). Ethical Community is 32%. JC Community Charter is 85% FRL. Learning Community is 35% FRL. (I couldn't find Great Futures.)

If Jersey City's Adjustment Aid were gradually replaced by local taxes, JC's charter schools would come closer to matching the spending of JC's district schools. (my guess is that JC's leadership would rather change the charter funding law than the state aid distribution, which is also reasonable from their perspective.)

Again, charter school funding is very complex, but since post-2008 charters don't get Adjustment Aid, JC's charters are disadvantaged by the status quo.

Posted on: 2016/5/13 14:00
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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My point really isn't specifically about maintenance, but about how hard it is to even identify fat to cut should we have to cut the budget dramatically. As far as I can tell, they set it up so the teachers and students are the ones to suffer from losses of staff and programs, while the admins and infrastructure chug along fine due to unions, contracts and pure inertia.

I could be oversimplifying this, but what I do know is the charters manage do more for far less, even the ones with union teachers, like LCCS. That's not advocating that the system be replaced by charters, but that they learn from them.

Posted on: 2016/5/12 16:02
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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brewster wrote:
What about costs outside of Hudson County? Are they as variable?

What if we assumed from your data the utterly absurd notion that $1000 of every JC student's allotment is being sucked away by overstaffing, overpaying, padded OT, sweetheart contracting, etc. It's obviously absurd because things like that NEVER happen in JC. But if they did, how could we know without forensic accounting? It seems like these things are always set up so you can never compare apples to apples.


I think you are partly right that different districts are different apples when it comes to how they categorize spending. There are state guidelines, but I was told by an expert that when it comes to classification of spending the state is only super precise about what spending is classified as admin, but less strict with other forms of spending.

BUT different districts aren't that different either. Different districts are just different cultivars of apple, not apples and oranges.

If one district appears to be spending 250% as much as another on one thing, I'd be really confident that indeed, its spending on that item genuinely is higher.

You asked about places outside of JC. Here are some Essex districts:
Belleville, "$1,074"
Bloomfield, "$1,522"
Montclair, "$1,329"
Orange, "$1,693"
South Orange-Mpwd $1,839"
Millburn $1,573
Irvington"$2,168"
East Orange "$2,701"
Newark, "$2,646"

Here are a few more big urban districts:
Paterson "$2,105"
Trenton, "$2,185"
Camden, "$1,409"
Elizabeth "$2,201"

Spending on maintenance correlates with high spending overall (though there are exceptions). Hoboken's maintenance spending is $3,153 per student. Asbury Park's is $3,615. Keansburg's is $2,351. Pemberton's $2,010. (these are all Abbotts) Atlantic City is not an Abbott, but it is also an extremely high spending district (still), and it spends $2,596 per student.

Paramus has huge ratables and spends over $18k per student. It spends $2,953 on maintenance. Franklin Lakes is just plain rich and unlike, say, Millburn doesn't have a proportionally large student population. It spends $2,096 per student on maintenance.

As for accountants ... every district gets an annual audit, but the audit just focuses on blatant chicanery and untidy accounts. My district's auditor always praised us for how efficient our cafeteria operations were. Our auditor never made a budget recommendation.

I don't think the accountants look for bloat so much as they look for bad accounting.

Posted on: 2016/5/12 10:41

Edited by stateaidguy on 2016/5/12 11:00:39
Edited by stateaidguy on 2016/5/12 11:01:48
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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One thing is certain $100 million will be around $2,000 to $4,000 more depending on your assessment. While this is going on the tax abatement that passed in Journal Square guarantees the developer a 12% profit.

Posted on: 2016/5/12 2:06
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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What about costs outside of Hudson County? Are they as variable?

What if we assumed from your data the utterly absurd notion that $1000 of every JC student's allotment is being sucked away by overstaffing, overpaying, padded OT, sweetheart contracting, etc. It's obviously absurd because things like that NEVER happen in JC. But if they did, how could we know without forensic accounting? It seems like these things are always set up so you can never compare apples to apples.

Posted on: 2016/5/12 1:45
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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Suntime wrote:
Jcguys - i already have done the research and will be happy to share Specific information by pm, for anyone that is interested in helping with rectifying this problem. I was merely telling stateaidguy that before he claims there is no problem with lead in the jc school system, he should do better research. He obviously does not have any children in the jcps.



I stand corrected on lead in some schools' water, but I don't think this is germane to my overall point about the aid distribution being unfair.

I don't know enough about the lead issue, so I'll leave that aside for the moment, but in terms of overall facilities, JC should be doing relatively well.

You can't judge facilities purely by spending, but Jersey City's "Total Operations and Maintenance of Plant" spending is extremely high: $2,573 per student according to the User Friendly Budgets.

Bayonne's is only $1,522.
Kearny's is only $1,420.
West New York's is only $1,377
North Bergen's is $1,543
Guttenberg's is $1,045



"Operations and Maintenance-Salaries and Benefits" is much higher for JC too.

So I believe you when you say that Jersey City has some bad facilities, but there are so many other districts whose situations are far worse and most of those districts lack the capacity to increase local taxes very much.

I'm not going to speculate who or what might be at fault for not addressing the lead because I don't know enough about the issue, but the problem may be how money is allocated, not the raw amount going into the system.

Posted on: 2016/5/12 1:34
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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Monroe wrote:
Quote:

Suntime wrote:
Meanwhile, these jersey city children have suffered with highly contaminated lead in their school water systems for over a decade, with nothing being done. Kids in many schools don't have any greenspace to play/exercise in. During rainstorms, massive amounts of water floods through the roof and is collected in garbage cans. Nothing in done - it continues for years. Somehow, i don't see these basic health and safety problems happening in the "underfunded" suburbs.


Since Jersey City pays only 16% of school costs, the answer is simple-raise more revenue locally to fund the fixes.


Actually, we pay 17% which is $114 million of the budget. In 2005 we pay $72 million which was 13% of the school budget.

Posted on: 2016/5/12 1:28
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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Suntime wrote:
Meanwhile, these jersey city children have suffered with highly contaminated lead in their school water systems for over a decade, with nothing being done. Kids in many schools don't have any greenspace to play/exercise in. During rainstorms, massive amounts of water floods through the roof and is collected in garbage cans. Nothing in done - it continues for years. Somehow, i don't see these basic health and safety problems happening in the "underfunded" suburbs.


Since Jersey City pays only 16% of school costs, the answer is simple-raise more revenue locally to fund the fixes.

Posted on: 2016/5/11 20:38
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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I was talking to a tax lawyer who basically do condo work all over NJ. He said all counties with the exception of Hudson have tremendous defaults. Banks are letting properties go for pennies on the dollar. He said that is not the case here. Properties sell for nearly market value. When the NY market is hot, Hudson County properties sell even foreclosed properties. That being the case, I can see the state removing funding from JC based on increased sales while other towns lose ratables from foreclosures. The 25 year tax abatement in Journal Square is a prime example of excessive giveaways. When this developer group did their previous project under Healy they received a 12 tax abatement in Journal Square. Buying a home in JC is now a gamble until this board of ed funding is settled.

Posted on: 2016/5/11 20:38
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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Jcguys - i already have done the research and will be happy to share Specific information by pm, for anyone that is interested in helping with rectifying this problem. I was merely telling stateaidguy that before he claims there is no problem with lead in the jc school system, he should do better research. He obviously does not have any children in the jcps.

Posted on: 2016/5/11 19:27
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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JCGuys wrote:
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T-Bird wrote:
SAG - you clearly are well versed in the topic and I don't disagree that school $$ are inequitably distributed (as with most $$ in NJ), but there is a path of self help that could (and should) be pursued at the same time: consolidation of small towns, boroughs, municipalities, townships and school districts. The towns you point to (Swedesboro, Chesterfield, Newton, Delran, Freehold and Red Bank) all share one thing in common: populations under 20,000. In fact, three of them are under 8,000. Swedesboro's population is 2,584! That's probably the population of three towers in Newport.

I agree that the suburbs shouldn't be overly burdened in funding poorer districts (although we would probably have a vigorous debate around "overly burdened") but at the same time, why should a stubborn (and unnecessarily expensive) desire for "home rule" on such a ridiculously small level play such a big role in the discussion?




I've seen this argument about municipal and school district consolidation before. It's theoretically compelling, but when
researchers study tax rates and the cost of government per person on the municipal level, the cost per government are effectively the same for the smallest towns and the largest towns, with the lowest costs per person being in municipalities that have populations between 3,601 and 5,150.


These are fascinating statistics. I would love to read more research about this topic. It will never happen in New Jersey, but say if there was a county-wide consolidation of school districts. The first part of the equation is expenses (which may or may not decrease) but the other half would be a more stable revenue steam of property taxes, as both poor and affluent areas of the county would go to support all schools in the district.

I still think consolidation is the way to go for the broke districts crying poverty. I would love to see the state revamp the whole school funding issue altogether.

Posted on: 2016/5/11 19:11
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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Suntime wrote:
Stateaidguy - you need to do the research on lead. the problem with lead in jc schools makes newark look like child's play - no pun intended. It has been known about by local, state and federal officials since at least 2005. Some school faucets have tested at astronomical levels of lead. Its widespread throughout the older schools in the district. The solution has been to use bottled water and microwavable food. It is a cost issue - the city says they have no control over it. Thr board of ed says they dont have the money to replace the pipes and parts leaching the lead. The state is offering nothing to fix these schools. Its a disgrace, with no end in sight. Recently the playground to a local school was shut down due to lead contamination from the turnpike.
And I've seen the flooding. Some of these very old schools are in a terrible state of disrepair.


Lead is a serious issue. Why not do this research yourself, Suntime? You seem to have a passion about it.

Posted on: 2016/5/11 19:03
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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Stateaidguy - the lead in the jc schools is not coming from the water supply which is why it is not showing up in the report you are looking at - its due to leaching from old pipes and parts in the schools themselves. Testing in 2013 came back with over 200 faucets exceeding federal limits, many by over 100x the limit. Moreover, it is not clear whether all faucets were tested or just a sampling, which would be oven more troubling. So basically the district has just shut down certain faucets from use. nytimes recently addressed jersey city in a march 2016 article ablout lead in schools and it was periodically covered by local press after rounds of testing. I dont think many people know about what a problem this is and certainly BOE doesnt want to advertise this, especially given the fact that it has been going on for years.

Other problems in jersey city include the long term use of trailers as classrooms.

Posted on: 2016/5/11 18:36
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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Stateaidguy - you need to do the research on lead. the problem with lead in jc schools makes newark look like child's play - no pun intended. It has been known about by local, state and federal officials since at least 2005. Some school faucets have tested at astronomical levels of lead. Its widespread throughout the older schools in the district. The solution has been to use bottled water and microwavable food. It is a cost issue - the city says they have no control over it. Thr board of ed says they dont have the money to replace the pipes and parts leaching the lead. The state is offering nothing to fix these schools. Its a disgrace, with no end in sight. Recently the playground to a local school was shut down due to lead contamination from the turnpike.
And I've seen the flooding. Some of these very old schools are in a terrible state of disrepair.

Posted on: 2016/5/11 18:22
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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brewster wrote:
So, if I understand this all correctly, SFRA takes the aggregate personal income of the city, and determines the fair local contribution from that. And we don't collect that because of too low a rate and a large chunk of our wealthiest population live in PILOT buildings and don't effectively contribute even though their income skews the data?


Aggregate income is half of the calculation of LFS. The other half is Equalized Valuation.

You are right that (residential) PILOTed buildings skew the calculation.

PILOTed buildings are only "half invisible" to the formula for LFS. The value of the "improvement" is not part of Equalized Valuation, but the income of the residents is part of Aggregate Income.

Yes, this is messed up. Jersey Cityans should point out how PILOTing distorts state aid when the JC City Council tries to give out another PILOT to residential building in a hot location.

Jersey City is overaided based on its non-PILOTed property. JC's Equalized Valuation has risen from barely 1% of the state's total EV in 1998 to nearly 2% now ($21 billion) Even if the formula for LFS were purely based on EV Jersey City would be overaided.

http://njeducationaid.blogspot.com/20 ... s-of-new-jerseys-big.html

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Where does the levy on commercial operations fit in? I recall hearing Secaucus had low residential taxes due to the preponderance of commercial property, but theirs is only a hair lower than ours.


Commercial property is assessed differently from other kinds of property, but the tax rates are the same per dollar of value.

The formula for LFS treats all property types the same. I think this is actually ok since a town with a lot of non-residential property will end up having a big LFS relative to its Adequacy Budget and not get very much state aid.

What you heard about Secaucus is right.

Only 34.50% of Secaucus' property wealth is residential, compared to an 84% state median. 30% of Secaucus is commercial, compared to a 10% state median.

I've been working on a post for my blog about towns with the highest and lowest proportions of non-residential property and Secaucus is at the top of non-residential property.

JC needs a reval, but based on the existing assessment, JC is 61% residential, 25% commercial, 7% industrial, etc so as you can see, Jersey City also has a high proportion of non-residential property compared to the median NJ town.

Posted on: 2016/5/11 18:11
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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So, if I understand this all correctly, SFRA takes the aggregate personal income of the city, and determines the fair local contribution from that. And we don't collect that because of too low a rate and a large chunk of our wealthiest population live in PILOT buildings and don't effectively contribute even though their income skews the data?

Where does the levy on commercial operations fit in? I recall hearing Secaucus had low residential taxes due to the preponderance of commercial property, but theirs is only a hair lower than ours.

Posted on: 2016/5/11 17:19
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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brewster wrote:
SAG, is there a source of line item comparisons of how districts spend their money? I once tried to dig into the "simplified" version of JC's school budget to find out how much is spent on special ed, and it was absolutely impenetrable. They used terms that google returned no definitions for!

We hear you say we are overfunded, yet see no evidence of it. I do hear anecdotes of "we don't have enough money for that" when talking of common suburban school curriculum or infrastructure.

I have no problem believing it's sucked up by the vast bureaucracy, but I'd like to see evidence of it. I do understand there's so many variables, I don't expect clear answers. But even things like if the average buildings are 50 years older can make a huge difference in spending, can't they?


I try to always say that Jersey City is "overaided," not "overfunded."

I don't think anyone else observes this distinction, but since we call the money that the state gives schools "state aid," I think that if a district gets more than it's supposed to or less than it's supposed to, we should say "overaided" or "underaided."

Every district budget is made up of local, state, and a little bit of federal funds. It's possible for a district to be underaided but have an excellent budget if its taxes are high enough; likewise it's possible for a district to be overaided and have really bad budget if it keeps its taxes low. Jersey City, along with Brick and Toms River, is a district that is overaided but underfunded due to its taxes being lower than SFRA says they should be.

Unfortunately many people, including David Hespe, say "overfunded" and "underfunded" when they talk about state aid and this imprecision creates confusion.

Jersey City is spending $17,500 per pupil for 2015-16, but that's technically below Adequacy based on SFRA because with Jersey City's student demographics it should be spending closer to ~$19,000 per student.

So, a person could honestly say that Jersey City's schools are "underfunded," but the person would be wrong to imply that the reason is a lack of state money. The reason JC's schools are underfunded is a lack of local tax dollars.

I'm sure that Jersey City's schools could use more money. I bet even if they got their $19,000 per student they could still do more with more money.

Since SFRA's Adequacy targets are (inevitably) arbitrary and SFRA is woefully underfunded, overfunding and underfunding has to be seen in relative terms. So yeah, technically Jersey City should be spending at least $1000 more per student, but compared to Bayonne, Kearny, North Arlington, East Newark, Lodi, Guttenberg, North Bergen? Compared to those districts, Jersey City is quite well funded.

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SAG, is there a source of line item comparisons of how districts spend their money? I once tried to dig into the "simplified" version of JC's school budget to find out how much is spent on special ed, and it was absolutely impenetrable. They used terms that google returned no definitions for!


Yes, you can use the User Friendly Budgets for a single district's spending. To make comparisons between districts there is no tidy source, but I can tell you where to get the data if you want to dig deeper.

http://www.state.nj.us/education/finance/fp/ufb/2015/17.html

Posted on: 2016/5/11 16:59
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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SAG, is there a source of line item comparisons of how districts spend their money? I once tried to dig into the "simplified" version of JC's school budget to find out how much is spent on special ed, and it was absolutely impenetrable. They used terms that google returned no definitions for!

We hear you say we are overfunded, yet see no evidence of it. I do hear anecdotes of "we don't have enough money for that" when talking of common suburban school curriculum or infrastructure.

I have no problem believing it's sucked up by the vast bureaucracy, but I'd like to see evidence of it. I do understand there's so many variables, I don't expect clear answers. But even things like if the average buildings are 50 years older can make a huge difference in spending, can't they?

Posted on: 2016/5/11 16:16
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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JCGuys wrote:
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T-Bird wrote:
SAG - you clearly are well versed in the topic and I don't disagree that school $$ are inequitably distributed (as with most $$ in NJ), but there is a path of self help that could (and should) be pursued at the same time: consolidation of small towns, boroughs, municipalities, townships and school districts. The towns you point to (Swedesboro, Chesterfield, Newton, Delran, Freehold and Red Bank) all share one thing in common: populations under 20,000. In fact, three of them are under 8,000. Swedesboro's population is 2,584! That's probably the population of three towers in Newport.

I agree that the suburbs shouldn't be overly burdened in funding poorer districts (although we would probably have a vigorous debate around "overly burdened") but at the same time, why should a stubborn (and unnecessarily expensive) desire for "home rule" on such a ridiculously small level play such a big role in the discussion?




I've seen this argument about municipal and school district consolidation before. It's theoretically compelling, but when
researchers study tax rates and the cost of government per person on the municipal level, the cost per government are effectively the same for the smallest towns and the largest towns, with the lowest costs per person being in municipalities that have populations between 3,601 and 5,150.

It's not even true that NJ has home rule gone wild. We have more units of government per land area than other states, but when it comes to units of government per person we are average.

When it comes to taxes, not costs per government, the highest taxed ARE IN OLDER SUBURBS, the school districts that tend to be the state's most underaided and whose plights I am constantly trying to make people more aware of.

"The heaviest property tax burdens are found in small, older suburbs that have low property tax bases and limited personal
incomes among their residents; excessive spending is rarely found in such places, and the only feasible assistance must come from outside the community. State school aid is of considerable help in many places, especially in urban communities [because of Abbott; non-Abbotts get screwed], but State municipal aid is insufficient and poorly distributed."

http://blousteinlocal.rutgers.edu/wp- ... usteinlocal-sizestudy.pdf

Posted on: 2016/5/11 15:58
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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T-Bird wrote:
SAG - you clearly are well versed in the topic and I don't disagree that school $$ are inequitably distributed (as with most $$ in NJ), but there is a path of self help that could (and should) be pursued at the same time: consolidation of small towns, boroughs, municipalities, townships and school districts. The towns you point to (Swedesboro, Chesterfield, Newton, Delran, Freehold and Red Bank) all share one thing in common: populations under 20,000. In fact, three of them are under 8,000. Swedesboro's population is 2,584! That's probably the population of three towers in Newport.

I agree that the suburbs shouldn't be overly burdened in funding poorer districts (although we would probably have a vigorous debate around "overly burdened") but at the same time, why should a stubborn (and unnecessarily expensive) desire for "home rule" on such a ridiculously small level play such a big role in the discussion?


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Posted on: 2016/5/11 15:15
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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SAG - you clearly are well versed in the topic and I don't disagree that school $$ are inequitably distributed (as with most $$ in NJ), but there is a path of self help that could (and should) be pursued at the same time: consolidation of small towns, boroughs, municipalities, townships and school districts. The towns you point to (Swedesboro, Chesterfield, Newton, Delran, Freehold and Red Bank) all share one thing in common: populations under 20,000. In fact, three of them are under 8,000. Swedesboro's population is 2,584! That's probably the population of three towers in Newport.

I agree that the suburbs shouldn't be overly burdened in funding poorer districts (although we would probably have a vigorous debate around "overly burdened") but at the same time, why should a stubborn (and unnecessarily expensive) desire for "home rule" on such a ridiculously small level play such a big role in the discussion?

Posted on: 2016/5/11 15:07
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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Suntime wrote:
Meanwhile, these jersey city children have suffered with highly contaminated lead in their school water systems for over a decade, with nothing being done. Kids in many schools don't have any greenspace to play/exercise in. During rainstorms, massive amounts of water floods through the roof and is collected in garbage cans. Nothing in done - it continues for years. Somehow, i don't see these basic health and safety problems happening in the "underfunded" suburbs.


There's too much here to respond to, but this isn't "Jersey City vs the suburbs," it's "towns that have gotten wealthier and/or lost student population versus towns that have gotten poorer and/or gained population."


The districts that are the worst off are towns that you might have once considered "working class," but have had large increases in population, often from Latino immigration. Geographically these towns may be "suburban," but they don't fit your idea of a suburb demographically or in tax base.

It's awful if there is lead in JC schools, but JC isn't alone in having this problem and if it exists, it's not an issue of costs, since JC is one of NJ's higher spending districts.

I read about JC kids having elevated lead levels, but NJSpotlight doesn't list a single JC school as having lead in its drinking water.

http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/16 ... -jersey-s-drinking-water/

If JC kids don't have greenspace... umm, maybe that's because JC is a densely populated city?

Finally, how often do you really read articles about school budget problems outside of Jersey City? What news sites do you follow?

Did you know that Clifton just laid off 49 classroom staff members despite a growing population?

Did you know that Dover can't even afford to offer calculus even though its students are very high performing and the school has 800+ kids?

Did you know that Freehold Boro has converted its library and auditorium into classrooms because of space constraints?

Did you know that someone with a $200,000 house in Prospect Park would pay $5,000 a year in school taxes alone?

Did you know that Red Bank Boro hasn't skipped any tax increases, but one recent year it had to increase the tax levy by 10% because its student population was growing so rapidly?

Did you know that Belleville has had to borrow over $7 million in the last year?

Posted on: 2016/5/11 14:55
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Re: Is the $100 million proposed school aid cut designed to help Sweeney?
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Monroe wrote:
What you're seeing is the realization, on a bi-partisan level, of the unfairness of education funding. That's driving it, finally it's not only the wealthy suburbs but the under aided towns run by Democrats taking action. When the People's Republic of Maplewood/South Orange starts to jaw about it you know it's not a Christie move.


The "Stigma Free" town of Maplewood? I lean left, but when I first saw those signs last year, I couldn't help but chuckle...

Posted on: 2016/5/11 14:51
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