Manipulating Education costs

Posted in: Education Government Opinion on September 28, 2010 at 12:18 pm |

By Douglas E. Hall

It was back in April when the economy was looking worse by the minute, and it was becoming more apparent that drastic steps would have to be taken if the State of New Jersey was going to balance its budget, as law requires, for the new fiscal year.

Our new governor, Chris Christie was involved in crafting a new state budget for the first time.  It wasn’t long before our new Republican governor was making ominous sounds about slashing spending of long established programs, like aid to local school districts.  The governor and the New Jersey Education Association – the teacher’s union got into an awful row about this.

The teachers, school administrator and parents didn’t like to hear suggestions about lay offs and frozen salaries.  I truly believe that much of the opposition to Governor Christie thought he was simply being a mean penny pincher.

It was difficult for all to accept the fact that with state revenues declining, and I mean all revenue – income tax, sales tax, gambling tax from Atlantic City, were all in sharp decline.  The only prudent thing to do was to cut spending all around.  But there was a kicker in the revenues that aid our schools.

In the previous school year,  this state’s schools were subsidized along with all public schools in the nation by a total of $1.057 billion federal aid.  This aid program was not continued for the current school year.  This made a major difference in what funds were available for New Jersey public schools, especially with the negative effect the down economy has had on the state’s ability to provide its own aid to its schools.

So here we are, battle-scarred and beginning a new school year with austerity in place and school administrations struggling to save a nickel here and a dime there when, who comes along, but a smiling Senator Frank Lautenberg, our own Senator Lautenberg from Cliffside Park.  All he needed was a white horse.  He had a solution.

It’s Monday, Sept. 13, too late to do much about the current school year, but it’s just in time to impress voters on how those hard-working, Democrat legislators in Washington will save the day in spite of that mean old Republican governor.  Yes sir, our Senator Lautenberg, announces through an emailed press release “$268 million in federal education funding on its way to New Jersey classrooms.”

Too bad we didn’t get the money a year ago.  Maybe the governor and NJEA officials might be on more cordial terms, so cordial that the mix-up over the Race to the Top might have been avoided, and New Jersey would not have lost $400 million in this federally-sponsored contest. Maybe some laid-off teachers would still have their jobs.  Maybe some teachers who took a hasty retirement, fearing their benefits would be cut, would still be on the job.

But we can’t look a $3.8 million (the amount of money being distributed in the Bergen News area)  gift horse in the mouth, even if half of this money is going to North Bergen, a school district famous for consistently voting down school budgets by wide margins.

So the Democrat-controlled Congress spends money in a way to enhance their image and hurt the image of an office holder of the opposite party.

In a letter to superintendents and local school trustees, Acting Education Commissioner  Rochelle Hendricks advises, “I encourage your district to avoid spending decisions that would significantly grow future-year obligations that could prove to be unsustainable.  In other words, these one-time funds should not only preserve critical jobs, they should provide your district with the breathing room needed to plan for educationally sound, balanced budgets in the austere days to come.  It is unwise to assume that there will be additional streams of federal jobs money in planning for the future.”

Good advice.  Who knows what Congress and Senator Lautenberg will be up to when 2011 rolls around.

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