The Times, Tuesday, November 23, 2004

OPIONION/EDITORIALS

NOT WHETHER, BUT HOW  

The New Jersey Education Law Center, the NAACP and the New Jersey Education Association sponsored a full-page advertisement in The Times Sunday headed; “Message to the Property Tax Convention Task Force.” The message was: “Vote no on a constitutional convention…Only the New Jersey Legislature can produce tax reform now.

The Premise of the message was false. When the task force meets today, there will be no reason for its chairman, Rutgers professor Carl Van Horn, to call for a formal vote on whether there should be a convention. Its operating assumption is that there will be. The law that created the task force, A-97, signed by former Gov. James E. McGreevey July 2, 2004, assigned it the task of making recommendations “regarding the process of conducting a constitutional convention designed to change the existing property tax system” (italics ours).

The advertisement contained other misinformation, as William Dressel of the League of Municipalities points out in an op-ed article today. It said, for example: “Recommendations from a constitutional convention really will not matter much because the Legislature can reject its plan entirely, or change the plan before it goes to voters. So, after three years and $5 million, a constitution[al] convention may produce no reform at all.” Dead wrong. The facts are as follows:

The task force must report by December 31 with proposals on the method of choosing delegates, the scope of the convention’s deliberations and other basic details. The Legislature and governor will have 60 days to act on the report. In the end, they could decide to deep-six the whole convention idea. But if they agree to put the question to the voters, and the voters say “yes” the convention will be elected and will meet as a fully independent entity. Its delegates will draw up a package of statutory changes and constitutional amendments that are revenue neutral – i.e., will not increase nor decrease the overall state tax burden – and this will be submitted directly to the voters for their approval or disapproval. The Legislature can not touch it. That’s the whole point: Once the elected politicians at the State House formally abdicate their responsibility to enact real tax reform which they abdicated informally years ago – they must do it completely.

The motivation of the ELC, the NAACP-NJ and the NJEA for sponsoring this heavy-handed, erroneous advertisement is clear. They relish the status quo in education spending and teachers’ contract negotiations that has given New Jersey the highest per-pupil public school costs in the nation. They are content with state Supreme Court decisions that have indexed state spending in the 30 poorest school districts to the level of spending in the state’s richest districts (without requiring any minimum level of performance in return), while the great majority of in-between districts are forced to fund their schools out of ever-increasing property taxes levied against limited r

The Times, Tuesday, November 23, 2004 OPIONION/EDITORIALS NOT WHETHER, BUT HOW   The New Jersey Education Law Center, the NAACP and the New Jersey Education Association sponsored a full-page advertisement in The Times Sunday headed; “Message to the Property Tax Convention Task Force.” The message was: “Vote no on a constitutional convention…Only the New Jersey Legislature can produce tax reform now. The Premise of the message was false. When the task force meets today, there will be no reason for its chairman, Rutgers professor Carl Van Horn, to call for a formal vote on whether there should be a convention. Its operating assumption is that there will be. The law that created the task force, A-97, signed by former Gov. James E. McGreevey July 2, 2004, assigned it the task of making recommendations “regarding the process of conducting a constitutional convention designed to change the existing property tax system” (italics ours). The advertisement contained other misinformation, as William Dressel of the League of Municipalities points out in an op-ed article today. It said, for example: “Recommendations from a constitutional convention really will not matter much because the Legislature can reject its plan entirely, or change the plan before it goes to voters. So, after three years and $5 million, a constitution[al] convention may produce no reform at all.” Dead wrong. The facts are as follows: The task force must report by December 31 with proposals on the method of choosing delegates, the scope of the convention’s deliberations and other basic details. The Legislature and governor will have 60 days to act on the report. In the end, they could decide to deep-six the whole convention idea. But if they agree to put the question to the voters, and the voters say “yes” the convention will be elected and will meet as a fully independent entity. Its delegates will draw up a package of statutory changes and constitutional amendments that are revenue neutral – i.e., will not increase nor decrease the overall state tax burden – and this will be submitted directly to the voters for their approval or disapproval. The Legislature can not touch it. That’s the whole point: Once the elected politicians at the State House formally abdicate their responsibility to enact real tax reform which they abdicated informally years ago – they must do it completely. The motivation of the ELC, the NAACP-NJ and the NJEA for sponsoring this heavy-handed, erroneous advertisement is clear. They relish the status quo in education spending and teachers’ contract negotiations that has given New Jersey the highest per-pupil public school costs in the nation. They are content with state Supreme Court decisions that have indexed state spending in the 30 poorest school districts to the level of spending in the state’s richest districts (without requiring any minimum level of performance in return), while the great majority of in-between districts are forced to fund their schools out of ever-increasing property taxes levied against limited ratables. They fear the changes that an ad hoc convention of citizen delegates might recommend in the name of reasonableness and equity. Much better, as they see it, if such decisions are left in the hands of a compliant Legislature and a Supreme Court that clearly considers the sky to be the limit.