State aid cuts sharp for Bergen Passaic districts
March 18, 2010
School district officials who had braced themselves for big state aid cuts lamented Wednesday that the actual cuts are deeper than they had feared.
Bergen County will get $102 million less in state aid, a 41-percent cut from this year.
Passaic County will get $64 million less, an 8.5-percent cut.
“It’s certainly worse than anybody anticipated,” said James Montesano, superintendent of Paramus, which lost 99.8 percent of its aid, or $3.5 million. “It’s a wrecking ball pointed at our district.”
“This is beyond disastrous,” said Wayne school trustee Cindy Simon. Her district faces a $6.4 million cut.
Education Commissioner Bret Schundler acknowledged districts “are facing an extremely difficult time financially” due to the state’s budget crisis, but stressed the Christie administration had done its best to shore up education while slashing other areas even more. Overall, total federal and state dollars for districts will drop 7 percent next year.
Statewide, 60 wealthy districts will get no so-called formula aid next year, including 27 in Bergen. Bergen faces the steepest percentage drop in aid of any county.
Schundler said he applied the School Funding Reform Act of 2008, which awards extra help to schools with more students who are poor, have disabilities or speak limited English. After the formula was applied to adjust for such enrollment, he said, the department cut each district’s aid, up to 5 percent of its general budget.
The Education Law Center, which for decades fought in court to get fair funding for disadvantaged students, immediately protested that Christie’s plan flew in th e face of the court-approved system. He said the cuts could most adversely affect middle income districts where the new formula was designed to make up for past inequities. Clifton, for instance, will lose a quarter of its state aid, more than $7 million.
“The formula was designed to help districts like Clifton that had been shortchanged for a decade,” Sciarra said.
Asked whether he planned to litigate, he answered: “The governor must, in order for this to be even considered by the legislature, ask for relief from the court’s decision last May.”
Schundler said the aid cuts and the formula would survive a court challenge. “It will benefit all of New Jersey’s children if the law is preserved,” he said.
The commissioner added that the impact of the cuts could be tempered if the legislature quickly passes Christie’s proposals to curb pension costs, require teachers to chip in more for health benefits and give school boards more power at the bargaining table. He also stressed that many districts that lost formula aid will still get substantial money from Trenton to pay for special education, employee pensions, debt service and other categories.
Still, superintendents expressed dismay at the size of the cuts, and scrambled to update budgets at the eleventh hour. Tentative budgets must be submitted to state officials by March 26 for an April 20 vote by taxpayers. School budgets are not supposed to boost property taxes more than 4 percent in a year: Schundler discouraged districts from seeking waivers of that cap.
“Having less than four days to adjust to this is just, I think, monumentally unfair to everyone,” said River Dell Regional superintendent Patrick Fletcher. His district will get no formula aid, a $1 million cut.
The $1.3 million cut in Saddle Brook came as the district was already preparing to slice $2.2 million in services. Saddle Brook has already jettisoned 10 staff positions, including one administrator, and school custodians negotiated almost $300,000 in concessions to avoid outsourcing of their positions.
“I don’t know what to say and what to do anymore,” Board of Education president Sam Salierno said. “I’m totally speechless. Where we go from here, God only knows.”
Solutions could include cuts to extracurricular sports programs and the elementary school Spanish program, as well as combining classes, he said. Parents and staff have been attending meetings by the hundreds to voice opposition to the cuts already proposed.
“The band parents don’t want the band cut, the special ed parents don’t want special ed reduced. The other parents don’t want class size to go up,” Salierno said. “Every group says, ‘Don’t touch us; just find the money.’”
Mahwah schools stand to lose $2.7 million, or a 79 percent cut from last year’s aid.
“Everyone understands the state is in financial trouble,” Superintendent Charles Montesano said. “But if you live in Bergen County, especially in a place like Mahwah, you’re sending your tax dollars down there and getting very little in return.”
Robert Holster, Passaic schools superintendent, said a nearly $10.5 million aid reduction — a 5 percent cut — from last year means there “almost certainly” will be layoffs of teachers and administrators.
He said teachers who aren’t laid off will shoulder greater work burdens.
“Teachers are going to have to step up to the plate, sharpe ning their skills,” Holster said. He doubted the district would be able to maintain “class sizes conducive to learning” in light of the loss in aid, especially because classes swell every year with unforeseen spikes in enrollment.
Programs intended to keep kids motivated and in class may fall by the wayside, he said.
“I’ve been getting smoke in the theater for the past two months,” said Holster. “This past week, now I feel the fire.”
Superintendent Bruce DeLyon of Little Falls called the $618,000 aid reduction, a 78-percent cut from what the district received last year “devastating.” He said layoffs were a near certainty.
“We’re going to have to look at every single line item and every single service we offer,” he said.
Totowa Superintendent Vincent Varcadipane decried the state’s failure to return local residents’ income-tax payments in the form of school aid, but said that a surplus will forestall layoffs or program cuts. Totowa had a $714,000 aid reduction.
“It’s a slap in the face to every taxpayer in this borough,” he said.