Judge had said N.J. is in violation of the school funding law
Gov. Chris Christie during a press conference at the Statehouse in this March 16 file photo.TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie said today he is confident his administration will be able to convince the state Supreme Court it doesn’t have the money to fully fund the state’s school-funding law.
"My view is we’re going to win in the Supreme Court," Christie said after a news conference on police regionalization in Camden County. "The state government can’t print money."
The governor was responding to a judge’s ruling Tuesday that said the state is in violation of the school funding law, and the shortfall has caused some schools to fall short of the state constitution’s guarantee of a "thorough and efficient" education for all students.
Bergen County Assignment Judge Peter Doyne was appointed by the Supreme Court to rule only on the effect of the shortfall, and not on the validity of its causes or possible remedies. The case now goes back to the Supreme Court, which will consider the broader issue of how to address instances where students are not receiving a "thorough and efficient" education.
Christie cut state education aid twice in 2010, leaving school districts with more than $1 billion less in state aid than they had when Gov. Jon S. Corzine was in office. He justified those cuts by citing a decline in state revenues brought on by the recession.
An advocacy group representing low-income students sued the state over the cuts, continuing a decades-old legal battle over how the state funds education and how much it sends to districts in lower-income communities.
Christie said the issue isn’t how much money the state spends on education, but how effectively the money is spent.
He said reforming the education process with more charter schools, vouchers, teacher tenure reform and merit pay is the better course to improving classroom performance and ensuring the education system is constitutional.
Simply spending more "is a failed legal theory," he said.
The key question for the court is whether the state acted responsibly when it cut education funding, Christie said. Administration officials have said that the state aid cuts amounted to no more than 5 percent of any district’s annual operating plan to protect districts that rely more heavily on state aid.
"I believe we did," he said.
Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) who also attended the news conference, said the timing of the Supreme Court case — which comes as the state is compiling a new budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 — makes lawmakers’ jobs more difficult.
In a nearby building on the campus of Camden County College, the Assembly Budget Committee was holding a day-long public hearing on the $29.4 billion budget Christie proposed last month.
"It almost makes us start over again," Sweeney said.