Legislators struggle to meet the conflicting demands of residents
It’s difficult to have both lower property taxes or local control of schools, as legislators around the nation are discovering as they struggle to meet the conflicting demands of residents who want both the best for their children and the most for their money. The eight states with the highest property taxes are the eight states with the geographically smallest school districts. New Jersey leads in both categories, resulting in ideal conditions for a collision of competing interests. While consolidating districts could save money, it would weaken the cherished connection between communities and their schools. According to Michael Griffith, a school finance consultant with the Education Commission of the States, states such as Florida and Maryland, where there is a single school district per county, "have tighter control on taxes, but there's also less of a connection that people feel with the school district." "Hand in hand with local control is, typically, higher funding costs," he says. However, school district size is not the only factor in school costs. New Jersey's lower-than-average state and federal aid for schools, above-average teacher salaries, and high costs for special education are also significant. In addition, the issue of costs must be balanced against the quality of education. New Jersey regularly ranks well above average in measures of academic performance, such as graduation rates and standardized test scores. Education Week recently rated New Jersey second best in the nation for academic achievement. The study ranked Massachusetts first, Vermont third, and Connecticut fourth in academic achievement. Like New Jersey, those states have small districts and high property taxes. They were followed by Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Virginia, which have bigger districts and lower property taxes. New Jersey is especially reliant on property taxes to pay for schools, with average of 55% of a homeowner's property taxes going to fund schools. As a result, schools are under special scrutiny because they are the prime driver of property taxes as Governor John Corzine and state legislators consider government consolidation, including of police, fire, and other services.
While the governor is urging voluntary consolidations, some legislators support mandatory consolidations. "If we have to give up some local control, that's what's got to go," says state assemblyman David W. Wolfe. "If that's the trade-off, we've got to look at it." The New Jersey School Boards Association (NJSBA) opposes mandatory mergers. It contends consolidations do not guarantee lower property taxes. NJSBA argues that some communities' taxes could rise, teacher salaries might be higher in consolidated districts, and transportation costs could increase. A 2001 analysis by Syracuse University's Center for Policy Research of the consolidation of rural school districts in New York concluded that "holding student performance constant, we find evidence that school district consolidation substantially lowers operating costs, particularly when small districts are combined." The study found savings ranged from 20% when merging two 300-student districts, to 7% when merging two 900-student districts, but all but vanished for districts of more than 1,500 students. According to William Duncombe, lead author of the Syracuse study, "[t]he basic potential cost savings would apply to urban as well as rural districts… [t]he real key is enrollment size." Meanwhile, other studies emphasize the educational value of smaller schools, regardless of the size of a district. In addition, some of the states with the largest districts have moved recently to create new districts and to carve small schools out of large ones to improve student performance.
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Paul Nussbaum
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[Editor’s Note: The state of Maine is debating various proposals aimed at reducing school district administrative costs, including a plan by Governor John Baldacci to replace the state’s 290 districts with just 26. See below.]
Kennebec Journal
By Keith Edwards
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