Proposal misses mark

With all the talk of solving New Jersey’s school tax woes in recent years, it’s sad to see that the only real action being taken at the state level has little to do with the actual problems.

Gov. James E. McGreevey, like many state representatives, says he supports a bipartisan effort to look at reforming our system of funding schools, but after all these years, there seems to be no real movement by our state officials to bring about change. Instead, the governor is pushing a five-step plan that steps around the real issues.

Sure, we can get behind the governor’s call for more shared services; and we can’t argue with a plan to make developers help pay for the financial impact they bring to a community. But for most residents, these steps won’t do much with regard to the skyrocketing school tax bills we have been dealing with since the state froze its aid to school districts three years ago.

The governor’s first step, to eliminate the state’s 23 school district "bureaucracies" that have no schools, could do more harm than good, at least in Middlesex County, where just one school district, Helmetta, is in that category. Eliminating the Helmetta Board of Education — three volunteers who help look out for their community’s interests —-and that board’s part-time employees wouldn’t really do anybody any good. The savings it would bring, while unnoticeable in the first place, may be offset by greater administrative costs passed on by Spotswood, where Helmetta students are sent, and the loss of a system of checks and balances Helmetta now enjoys.

While school tax bills in many area communities have climbed by hundreds of dollars annually in recent years, it’s a shame to see the state focus on the pocket change that may or may not be saved from proposals like this. The state would be better advised to look at each district individually in terms of whether it is an unnecessary bureaucracy or if it makes sense to leave it alone.

As one local school official put it this week, "If that’s the governor’s solution to managing property taxes, we are all in trouble." Perhaps, he said, the state could instead do something about the costs of employees’ healthcare, which continues to drive up school budgets at a time when flat state aid means taxpayers must foot these costs on their own.

It’s high time that our state officials engaged in real discussions that will address these issues and give New Jersey a better way of funding its schools.