Statewide voters say no to nearly half of school budgets

Trenton - The message may have been meant only for local school boards, but in elections this week, New Jersey voters let it be known that they’re unhappy about their highest-in-the-nation property tax bills. In polling last week, they rejected just under half of the state’s school budgets, the harshest level in a dozen years. Of the 549 school districts presenting budgets to the public, 286 were approved, according to an analysis of unofficial election returns by the New Jersey School Boards Association. The 52.1 percent passage rate was the lowest since 1994 in the state that gives residents the most say in school budgets. The approvals were down significantly compared with last year, when voters accepted more than 70 percent of budgets. Schools fared even worse with separate ballot questions for additional spending. Two-thirds of the additional questions, which were on ballots in 57 districts, were rejected. For most schools, state aid has remained unchanged in the past four years, and Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s proposed budget calls for keeping the help level again in about two-thirds of school districts. That means that nearly all the increased costs of running schools are showing up in local property taxes. Rejected budgets now go to municipal governments, which can make cuts. Often, said Mike Yaple, a spokesman for the school board association, the local governments do not do much to the budgets. ``Many municipalities have left the budgets intact and that’s probably a realization that a lot of the financial distress is coming from the lack of state aid,’’ Yaple said. ``When the school board can demonstrate that the budget is sound and being kept in line, it’s hard to make deep cuts into the school budget.’’ One town where the budget was sunk is Burlington County’s Willingboro. There, the budget defeat came despite Corzine’s announcement last Monday that he would approve a $10 million, 10-year no-interest loan to help the district balance its books. Changing the way schools are funded in New Jersey - and making property taxes less onerous - has long been kicked around by politicians and lobbying groups such as the school boards association, though action is rare. Appearing on Ewing radio station New Jersey 101.5 WKXW last Wednesday, Corzine again called for changes. ``We’re going to need a new school funding formula, because I think we have a broken system today where we’re more focused on districts than we are kids,’’ he said. Tom Wilson, chairman of the Republican State Committee, said that school budgets are a place voters get to take out their anger about high taxes generally and a proposed state budget that totals more than $30 billion, with $1.9 billion in sales and other tax increases. ``We’re seeing a very clear indicator that the people of New Jersey have had it,’’ he said. Jerry Cantrell, the leader of the Silver Brigade, a group of about 100 northern New Jersey residents, said schools are simply spending too much by giving teachers big raises, for example. ``The increases in our area up here have been tremendous,’’ he said.