School district dissolutions raise local officials' ire

ROCKY HILL -- If the experience in this tiny Somerset County borough is an indication of future trends, state officials pushing for consolidation of local government bodies around New Jersey can expect a difficult path ahead.

After "non-operating" districts in Rocky Hill, Millstone Borough and 11 other towns were eliminated July 1 in the name of cost savings and tax relief, local officials were quick to denounce the move and the two towns sued the state.

The Department of Education (DOE) has further plans to eliminate the remaining 13 districts around the state that send their students to larger districts. Separately, Gov. Corzine and some legislators have pushed for the consolidation of municipalities as well, such as the Princetons.

Municipal and educational consolidations move on separate tracks and differ in important ways. One major difference is that towns may only consolidate after voters give approval, whereas the DOE simply ordered the school districts eliminated under a measure Corzine signed in June.

Even so, the negative reaction to the dissolutions means that future cost-saving efforts could meet increased resistance, said Marvin Reed, former mayor of Princeton Borough and a member of a state commission studying municipal mergers.

"In this case, where you had mandated consolidation in Rocky Hill, there is this feedback from people that they're unhappy at being made to do it," Reed said. "They'll be more sensitive if we raise questions with them about municipal consolidation."

The state's July 1 order dissolved the Rocky Hill and Millstone Borough districts so they can be fully merged with the much larger neighboring districts they pay to educate their students -- Montgomery and Hillsborough, respectively.

Before the order, the state had 616 districts, a number that reformers have described as duplicative and wasteful. The 26 tiny non-operating districts had no schools of their own.

The two Somerset districts launched a legal counterstrike earlier this month challenging the state's move as an unconstitutional power grab and seeking a court order to reverse their dissolution.

"The big issue is that this was forced upon them by people in Trenton. There was no public vote on this," said Mike Yaple, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association, which opposed the legislation that let Education Commissioner Lucille Davy order non-operating districts dissolved.

But backers of school district realignment, like state Sen. Shirley Turner, D-Lawrence, contend that reform aimed at gaining property tax relief has to start somewhere and the non-operating districts are a logical choice.

"The situation is screaming out for reform," said Turner, a co-sponsor of the enabling legislation. "We've got to find new ways to provide tax relief for our residents in New Jersey. We've got to consolidate, and we've got to regionalize the districts and a lot of these towns."

The NJSBA isn't a party to Rocky Hill's lawsuit, but is critical of the premise that school district consolidation is an all-around win for New Jersey taxpayers.

"So much of this is being done under the banner of property tax relief," Yaple said. But "typically, when you combine these districts, you find one town's taxes go up, the other town's taxes go down. That's not property tax relief when you're raising taxes on half the communities -- so that's a big issue, too."

In Rocky Hill's case, the projected cost savings squeezed out through consolidation with the Montgomery school district is a mere $37,500 -- less than 1 cent on the borough's tax rate -- according to an analysis by Somerset County Executive Superintendent of Schools Trudy Doyle.

A revised tax levy that will go into effect in the 2010-2011 year, based 61.5 percent on enrollment and 38.5 percent on equalized property valuation, has been designed to keep both communities' tax levies "as close to what they have been as possible," Doyle said.

But Rocky Hill Mayor Edward Zimmerman said it's not at all clear what Rocky Hill or Montgomery stand to achieve from the Rocky Hill School District's dissolution.

"I don't know that there is any financial gain to be had from this," said Zimmerman, whose wife, Randie, was one of the five members of the Rocky Hill school board until it was dissolved. "It's more political -- 'Look what I did.'"

Gov. Corzine, he said, essentially "allowed one of his appointees (Doyle) to fire five elected officials without any input from the community."

Doyle conceded that the savings are minor, but said streamlining district operations is an issue of statewide importance.

"Although it didn't look like a lot of money, those functions that the money represented can so easily be absorbed by the (larger) district that already had the children," she said.

"It's not just a matter of money," added Doyle, who became Somerset County's executive superintendent in February 2008. "It has more to do with the issue of governance and of, 'Should we have a governing body for a school district that has no students?'."

DOE spokeswoman Kathryn Forsyth said the overall objective of eliminating the non-operating school districts is "to create pre-K-to-12 districts throughout the state as a more efficient way of running education."

Like all school boards in New Jersey, Rocky Hill's elected board members are unpaid volunteers, so neither Zimmerman nor his wife have any financial stake in reinstating the Rocky Hill school board.

Zimmerman said voters in his community merely wanted a say in the matter of dissolving their school district and the opportunity to reserve a meaningful voice on the Montgomery school board under a fully merged district.

He complained there were no public meetings on the subject, Doyle's analysis wasn't sent to the borough until the day before the district was discontinued, and Rocky Hill voters were unable to vote on the change.

"They weren't given the opportunity, and they are upset by it," he said.

Doyle said the state legislation authorizing the dissolution does not allow for a vote. However, she met Zimmerman and district officials in May 2008 to review the district's prospects and informed the business administrator as soon as the legislation was drafted and she learned the dissolutions were coming, she said.

Doyle also noted that the former Rocky Hill school board had no power in the Montgomery district, whereas Montgomery's board will be expanded from nine to 10 members in August to give Randie Zimmerman a temporary post on the panel through April, when elections will take place.

Marvin Reed said he and his fellow members of the Local Unit Alignment, Reorganization and Consolidation Commission have been following the school district consolidation process closely and will meet with Davy later this month for an update.

"We want to get a picture of what they're actually doing and how they're going about it, because it would be logical that any analysis we did of municipal consolidation would follow those same regional lines," he said.

Similar objections could arise as well, such as claims that consolidation will not save money or will deprive a merged community of a voice in government, Reed said.

Since consolidation requires approval by the residents of affected towns, those objections must be addressed. Communities must do realistic financial analyses of the effect on their tax rates and of the actual amount of services they are currently getting for their taxes, he said.

"Part of the problem is that people seldom do that," Reed said.

Staff writer Ryan Tracy contributed to this report.

by : www.nj.com