I f the state Legislature wants to keep the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights on the books, it’s going to need to pony up some money to help school districts implement it, according to a ruling from a state council.

The Council on Local Mandates ruled that the law, which local districts have scrambled to comply with since September, was an unfunded state mandate. The ruling, stemming from a complaint filed by a Warren County school board, will take effect when the council’s written decision is published in about 60 days.

Council Chairman John A. Sweeney, a retired assignment judge, of Burlington County, said that the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights mandated that school districts create certain positions, follow protocols and institute training to prevent and address harassment, intimidation and bullying in schools. The law also created an anti-bullying prevention fund to help districts pay for these additional costs. However, to date, the Legislature has not put any money into the fund, Sweeney said.

As such, the Allamuchy Township Board of Education argued that the law required it to spend money through local taxes without having it reimbursed. It also argued that even if there was money in the fund, there was no mechanism in place to ensure the board would be reimbursed for its expenses.

The Council on Local Mandates agreed with the school board and ruled that, as written, the anti-bullying law was an unfunded mandate. Sweeney said it is now up to the Legislature to amend the law. If it doesn’t, the current law would expire.

While the council usually does not announce its decision from the bench, Sweeney said an exception was made in this case because of the law’s “desirable goals.” “In this particular case, we thought it was important enough that we send a message that the law was basically and fundamentally a good law, but needed to be fixed in order to be constitutional,” Sweeney said.

State Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan, Jr. (D-Middlesex), a prime sponsor of the Anti- Bullying Bill of Rights, said that the Governor’s Office and the law’s sponsors are working to find a funding source for the law.

“Bullying is real, it is a real problem, and we can’t just let the legislation become ineffective because of this issue,” Diegnan said. “I am very confident it will be worked out.”

Since it was implemented in September, local school officials have noted that while the newanti-bullying law has noble goals, it places a major drain on district resources because of tight deadlines and heavy paperwork demands.

Old Bridge Interim Superintendent of School Timothy Brennan said that schools were basically left with two choices: find more money and hire more people to help with the paperwork, which he said “was not in the cards” for Old Bridge; or have district personnel who could be working with students or teachers instead filling out “onerous paperwork.”

Monroe Board of Education member MarkKlein also said there is a major problem with the law in what is defined as bullying. Klein said that before the law, the board would review one or two bullying incidents per month. Now, during some months, he said, they are considering as many as 40 incidents.

Further, while most incidents used to occur at the high school level, now Klein said they are finding them in elementary and middle schools and including things like a student bumping into another one when getting on the bus, or one classmate looking at another the wrong way. If someone reports it, it becomes the subject of a bullying investigation.

“It’s just too broad,” Klein said. “It has to be rewritten. There has to be a tighter description of the offenses that qualify as bullying, and give us money to enforce it.”

Spotswood anti-bullying coordinator Maureen McVeigh Berzok said the law is a “good law,” but that there were some kinks in how it manifested itself. She said that if the state had provided an efficient system for dealing with the paperwork and had given districtsmore to go on, school systems would not have to spend as much time developing their own paperwork, which could be different from that developed by other districts across the state.

Yet regardless of what changes are made, McVeigh-Berzok said the intent — to end bullying in schools — must remain the same.

“We have to prevent bullying,” she said. “It’s a job that needs doing.”

Brennan agreed and said that he hopes that the Legislature will revisit the law and make changes to zero-in on the issue of bullying in schools.

“Good intent, important problem. … Let’s take a look at what we learned going this far down the road with this version of it and see if we can come up with a better one,” Brennan said.

Contact Chris Zawistowski at czawistowski@gmnews.com.