New Jersey Revamps State Aid to Schools

by DAVID W. CHEN

TRENTON — After a tense three-hour stalemate, legislators handed Gov. Jon S. Corzine a dramatic political victory on Monday night when they approved his $7.8 billion plan to revamp New Jersey’s formula of financing the state’s public schools.
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After the Legislature threw in an extra $20 million for special education with his approval, Mr. Corzine, a Democrat, was able to sway three Republican senators and overcome opposition from urban lawmakers.

The plan is designed to direct more money to children who live outside the poorest districts, which now receive more than half of all state aid.

If the plan survives the scrutiny of the State Supreme Court, which Mr. Corzine will seek, the state would apportion funds to schools based on demographics, including family income, population growth, language ability and special academic needs.

Under the formula, education spending would increase by an estimated $532.8 million the first year, with all districts receiving at least a 2 percent increase for the next three years, and some receiving as much as 20 percent more.

But for hours, the fate of the bill — and by extension, a major pillar of Mr. Corzine’s agenda — was uncertain.

With the legislative session due to close on Tuesday at noon, the bill stalled initially in the Senate when six Democrats joined 13 Republicans to freeze the vote at 20-19 in favor of the bill, one vote shy of the majority needed.

So for the next three hours, Democratic and Republican supporters of the bill surrounded one colleague after another who had initially voted no, hoping to change minds.

The drama yielded moments of pure political theater and high-stakes brinkmanship. At one point, at least 15 senators huddled in the middle of the Senate floor, not unlike the way baseball players, anxious, huddle around the pitcher’s mound.

At another point, Assemblyman Joseph R. Malone III, a Republican who was part of a 41-36 majority that approved the bill in the Assembly earlier in the evening, wandered down the hall to the Senate. He escorted Senator Martha W. Bark, a fellow Republican who had voted no, to his office, fueling speculation that he was trying to win her over.

But in the end, it was something much simpler — a promise, with Mr. Corzine’s approval, of an additional $20 million for special education in next year’s budget — that compelled Ms. Bark and two other Republicans, Senator Gerald Cardinale and Senator Joseph A. Palaia, to switch their votes.

“I’m jubilant,” said Senator Barbara Buono, a Democrat from Metuchen who was the bill’s sponsor, and who helped to craft the compromise. “This is the way it’s supposed to work.”

Mr. Corzine said in a statement: “The new law replaces a flawed system with an equitable, balanced, and nonpartisan formula that addresses the needs of all students, regardless of where they live. This formula puts the needs of all children on an equal footing, and will give them the educational resources they need for success.”

The vote on school financing capped a frenetic final day of the legislative session. With the two houses meeting simultaneously, the corridors of the State House teemed with lobbyists, reporters, educators and other interest groups until 11 p.m.

Among the dozens of measures that passed on Monday, the two chambers overwhelmingly approved bills authorizing a formal state apology for New Jersey’s role in slavery. New Jersey, the last Northern state to abolish slavery, became the first Northern state to apologize for it.

The two chambers also passed bills to increase judicial salaries, offer tax credits for businesses that invest in urban transit areas and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Assembly also approved a bill, previously passed by the Senate, to toughen the state’s hate crime and bullying laws.

Those legislators who will continue serving when the next session begins on Tuesday will not have much time to catch their breath.

A few hours after they are sworn in, Mr. Corzine is scheduled to outline in his State of the State address his long-simmering proposal to squeeze more money out of the state’s toll roads. He is expected to call on the Legislature to approve his idea of selling billions of dollars worth of bonds that would be backed by higher tolls on the state’s three toll roads, the New Jersey Turnpike, Garden State Parkway and Atlantic City Expressway.

But on Monday, the focus was education, which for the last two decades has largely been guided by a landmark State Supreme Court ruling, Abbott v. Burke, which found that students in poor and urban districts were not receiving the same education as their counterparts in wealthier ones, and therefore deserved a bigger percentage of the state’s aid to schools.

Those who opposed Mr. Corzine’s bill did so for a variety of reasons, including the sense that it was being rushed through, or that it threatened to cut funding to poor urban districts. All six Senate members of the Legislative Black Caucus opposed the bill.

“They don’t want the middle class suburban schools to examine this formula, not in terms of what it takes from Abbott, but what it takes from us,” said Senator Nia H. Gill, a Democrat from Montclair.

After the vote, Senate President Richard J. Codey summed up the relief felt by the bill’s supporters when he grabbed Joseph V. Doria Jr., Mr. Corzine’s commissioner of community affairs, who until recently had been a Senate colleague.

“Joe, it’s like delivering a baby,” Mr. Codey joked. “It’s painful, but it’s worth it.”

Jeremy Peters contributed reporting.