McCann: Officials Should Start Calling the Shots in School Funding

Editor's note: This piece was written by John McCann, a resident of Cranford. It has not been edited. Please see the statistics note at the bottom of the piece. If you'd like to submit a letter to the editor, email whitney@patch.com. Read our coverage of the $20M repair referendum here.

Specifically, because the state of New Jersey puts matching conditions on the grants that they disburse -- using money, by the way, that is already ours -- Cranford taxpayers are repeatedly "forced" into "yes" votes on matters where contracting work is involved.  Taxpayers have no real choice and the town and BoE have no flexibility in planning for their needs (and this is true for towns across the state).  

For our upcoming $20,000,000 bond referendum – as with all of them for as long as I can remember -- if Cranford residents do not vote "yes" to funding 60% of the cost of the contracting work, the town will not receive the remaining 40% in grant monies.  My question is, "Why can’t state grants be distributed without matching conditions while keeping the grant selection process exactly the same."  After all, it is our money and the change would cost nothing.

Under the current method of funding, Cranford taxpayers are actually penalized by the state for not voting "yes" to bond issues subject to these "matching" grants.  The state dictates the nature of the work through the subject of the grant programs they make available; they also control the selection process itself.  This means that the Cranford BoE and township committee, while appearing to "govern" and "administer," are really just doing the state's bidding, follow-up paperwork for decisions that the state has already made. 

Because of this, Cranford taxpayers often have little real say in deciding how and when their tax money is spent in these situations. The vote is always "yes."  Ironically, we vote to pay 60% of the bond costs through our Cranford property taxes for the privilege of  paying for the remaining 40% through our NJ state taxes.  What a great deal for Cranford residents. All or nothing at all.    

This method of funding has to stop.  Cranford taxpayers should ask our state senators and assemblymen to stop the conditional grants and offer this grant money to towns without strings as long as the expenses are vetted and legitimate.  The matching programs rob Cranford of real choices in governing their affairs, the timing of their spending, and, worse yet, they rob the town of the ability to flexibly manage their way through dicey economic times, like now.  With the landscape littered with wrecked retirement portfolios and a 10% unemployment rate* -- yes, Cranford has taken a big hit here -- the BoE and township must consider the plight of our residents and manage school and town affairs with full consideration of the dire economic state of a not insignificant percentage of its residents.  Yes.  Things are worse than they may seem.

The town and the BoE should do what they can  to take back control of  our money so they can serve their taxpaying constituencies compassionately and not as the state of New Jersey dictates.  They can't do that under the current funding framework. Unless there is change to that system, all Cranford can expect is predictable and inevitable with nothing to really “vote” for -- and not necessarily in Cranford's or its taxpayers best interests.

For the present – and since the funding method will take time – the only recourse available to the BoE in mitigating the impact of the cost of this immense – yes, immense! --  bond request of Cranford residents is to find savings in what they do control – the school budget.  Given the tough times, the Cranford BoE should bend over backwards this year to present a budget with a zero increase.  Private companies around the world are cutting expenses far in excess of this middling expectation and are surviving.  There is no reason to think the BoE can’t do the same. 

*Cranford Patch was unable to verify this number. According to the United States Department of Labor, Union County unemployment was at 9.8 percent in September 2009. The department's Bureau of Labor Statistics does not provide unemployment data for towns with populations under 25,000.