ELC News - Rutgers Study Links School Aid Freeze And Rise In Property Taxes

In a paper written by Dr. Ernest Reock and published by the Institute on Education Law and Policy (IELP) at Rutgers-Newark School of Law, the author concludes that, "the state aid freeze caused massive under-funding of many school districts throughout the state, especially poor non-Abbott districts, and may well have contributed to the property tax crisis New Jersey faces."

For the past four years, the New Jersey Legislature has not funded public schools in accordance with the state’s school funding law, the Comprehensive Education Improvement and Financing Act of 1996 (CEIFA). Instead, it has frozen aid to local school districts at their 2001-02 levels, regardless of changes in enrollment, cost or need. The purpose of Dr. Reock’s paper is "to estimate the financial impact that CEIFA and the attendant Abbott decision would have had on state aid if CEIFA had been implemented from 2002-03 through 2005-06 as it was originally enacted."

For example, Dr. Reock shows that during the 2005-6 school year alone, the freeze resulted in total under-funding of $846 million, with poor non-Abbott districts ($170 million) and mid-wealth districts ($508 million) hurt the most. That amounted to $1,627 per pupil in the poor non-Abbott districts and $758 per pupil in the mid-wealth districts.

"Dr. Reock’s research puts to rest any notion that the funding provided to students in our high poverty urban or "Abbott" districts has caused state aid shortfalls and rising property taxes in other districts, particularly inner suburban or mid-wealth districts," said David Sciarra, Executive Director of Education Law Center. "We’d go a long way to addressing our school funding and property tax problem if the Legislature would simply provide the state aid increases required under the existing CEIFA formula."