BOE member Jeff Bennett's Education Aid Blog

In which we learn of our impending pension doom and grimly applaud the winner of the Smaug Award for Aid Hoarding: http://njeducationaid.blogspot.com/

Jeff has turned himself into the equivalent of a NYT investigative reporter on local ed funding issues. It's a shame he's leaving the BOE, but the tradeoff is that he has gotten busy shining light into some of the dark corners from whence our collective school finance troubles come.

I will happily follow the blog. I've learned so much from Jeff about a subject I always found incomprehensible.

I've come to believe it's intentionally incomprehensible. And a typical Jersey racket, to boot.

While Jeff will be missed on the BOE, glad he's still involved, particularly in this area-- the most pressing issue the district faces IMHO.

ctrzaska said:
I've come to believe it's intentionally incomprehensible. And a typical Jersey racket, to boot.
While Jeff will be missed on the BOE, glad he's still involved, particularly in this area-- the most pressing issue the district faces IMHO.

yes, yes, and yes

New Jersey's school funding system is a magisterial accountability dodge. The executive branch can take action only by consent order. From Jeff's research I learned that the legislature does have the power to put districts/towns on, or strike them off, the Abbott list. And it does so capriciously.

And what is the state's oversight role when Abbott municipalities award PILOTs to entities that would otherwise contribute massively to the town's school district? Should the municipality have the authority to artificially lower their district's school tax receipts, when property tax payers in the rest of the state are sending money to the municipality's schools to help redress local underfunding?

Some of the difficulty in many redistribution schemes is that they can't work on autopilot: in order to ensure funds are directed appropriately over time, the distribution must continually be reevaluated. Yet every time an opportunity for adjustment exists, so does an opportunity for political manipulation.

Thank you for the compliments on the new blog.

I think people in SOMA would be interested in this post about the Problems of PILOTs.

The real problem isn't what a town does to its own taxpayers, especially if PILOTs are used sparingly. The real problem occurs when other towns that get high state aid grant PILOTs prolifically and you, as a state taxpayer experience opportunity costs and have to pay for services for residents of those PILOTed buildings.

Jersey City has $8 billion in "hidden" property wealth hidden behind PILOTs, over a third of its total real (equalized) valuation. If that property were paying school taxes NJ could reduce Jersey City's $490 million state aid stream and redistribute that aid to other districts, like Belleville, Bloomfield, WO, and the SOMSD.