Back in January, the Council on Unfunded Mandates ruled that NJ’s highly-touted Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying legislation – which compelled all districts to implement multi-leveled procedures to prevent bullying and protect targeted kids – was unconstitutional because no money was provided to pay costs. A case in point was Allamuchy Township, which sued the state because it estimated its costs at $20,000.
At the time, NJ Spotlight noted, “extrapolating Allamuchy’s staffing costs comes to $10 million to $15 million, but a staff analysis by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services a year ago said it could not put a price tag on the law, since each district would handle the responsibilities differently.”Anxious to salvage the legislation, the sponsors of the bill, Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Bergen) and Senator Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex, convinced Gov. Christie to create a $1 million fund that would issue grants through the DOE to pay districts for the required training and staff time. Voila! Problem solved.
Today, however, the Star-Ledger and the Record are reporting that 371 local districts applied for grants that total almost $5 million (a figure much closer to Spotlight’s extrapolation than the Christie Administration’s token fund). Therefore, each district will get about 20% of its projected costs.
Haledon got $36. Bogota asked for $10,775 and got $2,208. Englewood Public Schools got $174.The Paterson Charter School for Science and Technology, however, received $9,000.
Is the anti-bullying legislation still an unfunded mandate and, therefore, unconstitutional? Is a partially-funded mandate good enough? Stay tuned.
This is a statement by Paula White, Executive Director of JerseyCAN, on the New Jersey…
This is a press release. Earlier today, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill to eliminate…
Today Gov. Phil Murphy signed Senate Bill 896, which prohibits the New Jersey Department of…
The 74 conducted a study of the relative learning loss in Democratic (Blue) and Republican (Red) states and…
In October 2020 Newark Superintendent Roger Leon announced with great fanfare the opening of district’s…
This is a press release from the Governor's Office. In related news, one in five…