Education Law Center has joined the plaintiffs in the “Bacon” cases, a lawsuit that charges that sixteen small rural districts in New Jersey are deprived of adequate state aid despite a level of poverty that approaches Abbott districts. But while Abbotts get lots of compensatory aid, Bacons get bubkes. Here’s the press release from ELC and here’s the story from NJ Spotlight.
One of the impetuses for the 2008 School Funding Reform Act, which intended to fairly distribute state aid money based on need, was to get out of the Abbott hole and avoid further Bacon litigation. Money would go directly to needy children, regardless of district of residence. State finances held up long enough for former Governor Jon Corzine to fulfill the funding formula for one year, but every year since then, during the rest of Corzine’s term and throughout Gov. Christie’s, there has not been enough state revenue to meet the distribution requirements of SFRA.
So the Bacon cases are back in court. Those sixteen poor rural districts are Buena Regional, Clayton, Commercial, Egg Harbor City, Fairfield, Hammonton Township, Lakehurst, Lakewood, Lawrence, Little Egg Harbor, Maurice River, Ocean Township, Quinton, Upper Deerfield, Wallington, and Woodbine.
I covered this a few years ago, so go here for more background. At that time, the Court ordered needs-assessments done on all the Bacon districts and those analyses are included in the brief. Here’s a section from the brief that urges mandatory consolidation of Bacon districts with their more wealthy neighbors:
A regionalization study…would be key to the funding of the Bacon districts…Each district gave its full cooperation to the Executive County Superintendents who conducted these studies. Virtually every Bacon districts and its voters would be thrilled to consolidate with wealthier and more property rich districts that are close by. Clayton officials, for example, have tried numerous times to combine with Glassboro to its north or Delsea Regional (Franklin and Elk Townships) to its south, north, and east. These entreaties have been continuously rebuffed. As another example, Woodbine’s K-8 school is less than five (5) miles from Dennis Township’s K-8 school. Woodbine’s officials and voters would love to combine with Dennis Township. There is zero chance that Dennis Township voters would agree to combine with Woodbine, unless such regionalization becomes mandatory.
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Your coverage of the Bacon Case has been informative, thank you.
NJ has a funding cliff between the Abbotts and low-resource non-Abbotts that has to be fixed, but the solution should be a fair distribution of state aid according to the principles of SFRA, not a lawsuit.
First off, there is a wide variation in how much Bacon districts already spend and these districts aren't even close to being the most underfunded in NJ.
Ocean Township $16,171
Buena Regional" $15,616
Egg Harbor City $15,411
Woodbine $14,504
Lakehurst $14,466
Little Egg Harbor $14,128
Upper Deerfield $13,578
Quinton $12,815
Commercial $12,714
Clayton $12,552
Fairfield $11,850
Wallington $11,701
Lakewood $11,682
Lawrence $11,217
Hammonton Township $11,046
Maurice River $10,386
All of them spend more than East Newark. Fourteen spend more than Belleville. Ten spend more than Cartaret. Eight of the Bacons spend more than Bloomfield.
Nor are all of the Bacon districts that underaided. Review aid per pupil (excluding Extraordinary Aid and debt service) (Source for aid, State Aid Summaries 2014-15 divided by student enrollment from the User Friendly Budgets
Commercial $17,295
Lakehurst $15,268
Woodbine $12,798
Lawrence $12,189
Egg Harbor City $10,423
Maurice River $10,122
Buena Regional $10,101
Quinton $9,827
Fairfield $9,762
Clayton $7,287
Upper Deerfield $6,919
Little Egg Harbor $5,446
Hammonton Township $4,163
Lakewood $3,998
Wallington $2,491
Ocean Township $2,373
Some of the Bacons should get more, but several of the Bacon districts already get about as much as Abbotts like Elizabeth and Trenton. Since Long Branch and Neptune (both Abbotts) get in the $7,000-8,000 range, half of the Bacons are already funded at Abbott levels.
What's extraordinary is that some of the Bacon districts have higher aid per student than they spend per student. This appears to be because they have very high costs (above 40% for employee benefits).
Nor are the Bacon districts even low resource. Some are middle resource and some are very high resource.
Please review Equalized Valuation per student.
Ocean Township $1,426,843
Little Egg Harbor $1,318,170
Lakewood $1,188,155
Wallington $795,101
Upper Deerfield $681,360
Woodbine $678,472
Maurice River $670,056
Quinton $558,328
Fairfield $502,736
Egg Harbor City $474,894
"
Buena Regional" $469,849
Lawrence $442,122
Lakehurst $436,020
Commercial $422,109
Hammonton Township $359,783
Clayton $355,118
Basically I see this as another deeply problematic lawsuit, like the Abbott lawsuit. These districts aren't the neediest in NJ. Several already get large amounts of aid, several have high resources, and while several could probably benefit from more state aid and spending, so could a lot of districts that aren't part of this lawsuit.
(Source, User Friendly Budgets)
You referred to this in your post, but some of these districts should be consolidated. It's ridiculous that they get more aid per student than they apparently spend.
The NJ DOE released data last spring on how much aid districts would have gotten if SFRA had gotten its full funding for 2014-15. Ocean Twp would get 28% more aid, but the most underaided districts in NJ would get 70-90% more aid.
These calculations show that most of the Bacon districts are not severely underaided.
OCEAN TWP 28.00%
EGG HARBOR CITY 19.80%
CLAYTON BORO 19.70%
UPPER DEERFIELD TWP 19.70%
LAWRENCE TWP 19.60%
LAKEWOOD TWP 19.40%
HAMMONTON TOWN 19.00%
WALLINGTON BORO 19.00%
COMMERCIAL TWP 15.10%
MAURICE RIVER TWP 13.70%
QUINTON TWP 7.00%
FAIRFIELD TWP 6.00%
LITTLE EGG HARBOR TWP 4.50%
BUENA REGIONAL 3.40%
LAKEHURST BORO 2.30%
WOODBINE BORO 2.00%
http://www.state.nj.us/education/stateaid/1415/scenarios.shtml
This case operates on a false premise of severe underaiding. This is another instance of irresponsibility from the Education Law Center.
Not enough revenue to meet the requirement????? (Of THE LAW)
Dr. Waters,
You continue to out do yourself. Of course their is enough revenue! Only fools or shills believe that.
We have money for double, and triple dipping politicians and political appointees (including in the Governor's office) but not to meet the legal obligations for public schools?
Obviously there is enough money. It is merely a question of values.
You are not worthy...