Freehold Borough passes resolution to sue state over school funding – Asbury Park Press

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What to know about the 2017-2018 budget passed by Freehold Borough Public Schools.(Photo: FACT LIST BY STEPH SOLIS)

FREEHOLD BOROUGH -- Years of requests for more school fundinghave become a demand for millions of dollars after public school officials approved a resolution Monday to sue the Department of Education for the money.

Officials representing the borough school district, one of the most underfunded in New Jersey, say the state owes it millions of dollars in state aid this year alone according to the school funding formula.

"This is the start of the process but one that's been years in the making," said Joseph Howe, the school's business administrator. "The board feels at this point that they have no other choice but to bring this action, absent a solid plan from the administration, from the legislature to remedy theunder-adequacyof the district."

Since the start of the year, school officials made public appeals for additional state aid this budget season, includinga news conferenceMondaymorningin Trentonaswhere Education Commissioner Kimberley Harrington testified before the Assembly Budget Committee.

When grilled by legislators over underfunded districts, Harrington acknowledged that school funding remains a problem but said the problem lies with the formula as well. She referred to Gov. Chris Christie's budget address in February, in which he challenged lawmakers to come up with a new school funding formula within 100 days.

David Saens, a spokesman for the NJ Department of Education, said the agency could not comment because he was "not aware of this particular resolution from the Freehold Borough School Board and we have not received any formal documents regarding it."

The district will be represented by and Bruce Padula and Micci Weiss from the law firm Cleary, Giacobbe, Alfieri & Jacobs. Howe said they expect to file a complaint to the state Superior Court over the next couple of weeks.

School officials say there are 369 underfunded districts and 222 that are overfunded, or receive more than 100 percent of what they should under the state's school funding formula.

Education policy experts blame Gov. Chris Christie's administration for declining to increase education funding in the budget over his two terms, while increasing funding for charter and choice schools.

"Make no mistake, Governor Christie is directly responsible for the painful cuts schools must make again this year - whether in Kingsway Regional, Freehold Borough, Clifton, Bayonne, Newton or a host of other districts across the state," said David Sciarra, executive director of the Newark-based Education Law Center.

Christie, who called the school funding formula a "disaster," has called for an alternative strategy for funding public schools.

Meanwhile, the state Department of Education has continued to distribute aid to districts based on the 2008 results of the school funding formula even though some districts' enrollment dropped and others', like Freehold Borough and Red Bank's, surged during that period of time. These districts also saw an increase in students who are low-income, at risk or take English as a Second Language, which are other variables considered in the formula.

This year, the borough received $9.7 million in state aid this year, $12 million less than it should per the school funding formula.

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The state awarded Freehold Borough schools $25 million last year to fund new classrooms and building additions to ease the district's overcrowding, following two failed referendums to fund the construction locally.

The school district, which has more than 1,700 students, currently only has enough space for 1,148. The new construction would bring the district's capacity to 1,589.

Rocco Tomazic told the Press he was grateful for the construction grants but worried whether he would have enough teachers to staff the new classroomsdown the road. The district faced a $380,000 budget shortfall and contemplating cutting 10 positions, even though Tomazic repeatedly said the district is 50 teachers short.

The district used $275,347 from unassigned reserves, in addition to some of its surplus from previous years to balance the budget. It also had to eliminate a technology teacher position, which it had previously outsourced.

Padula, an attorney representing the district. says that while hundreds of school districts are underfunded, Freehold Borough is unique in that the district cannot meet its requirements to provide a "thorough and efficient" education to its students without the state aid.

"We believe the facts will demon that the funding that the state provides the district does not comply with its constitutional mandate to provide a thorough and efficient education," Padula said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Steph Solis: 732-403-0074; ssolis@gannett.com

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Freehold Borough passes resolution to sue state over school funding - Asbury Park Press