NJ Budget Crunch Could Stunt School Choice Program's Growth

Participation in New Jersey's public school choice program has grown by a factor of nine since Gov. Chris Christie made it permanent in 2010, but as lawmakers begin dissecting the 2016 budget, its success is becoming overshadowed by a funding problem.

The problem? Money for the program comes out of the general fund, which means if the school choice program gets a boost then others take a cut. With Christie opposed to tax increases and lawmakers leery of wholesale cuts elsewhere in the budget, the state's ledger is largely fixed.

Boosters of the program, which lawmakers will be considering during Budget Committee hearings later this month, say the school choice program is emerging as a victim of its own success.

The program stretches back to 1999 when it began as a pilot program under Gov. Christine Todd Whitman. It grew from about a dozen districts in 2000 with a budget of about $9 million to about 60 after Christie signed legislation to make the program permanent in 2010. The program currently has 135 districts participating and Christie's 2016 budget proposes spending $52.5 million, $.3.3 million over last year's figure.

But the funding problem became apparent when in the summer of 2013 the state Education Department placed a cap on the number of students who could "choice" into schools in the program. The department set the cap at 5 percent, so, for example, if a district had 100 so-called choice students and was set to have an opening of 20 spots the district could offer posts to only five students.

The idea behind the cap, says Education Department spokesman Michael Yaple, was to contain the costs. Despite the cap, Christie and Education Commissioner David Hespe are supportive of the program.

"We're in lean budget years," Yaple said. "But the support is there and the numbers really tell the story."

Questions surround the program's long-term fate, even though Christie — who is considering a presidential bid in a party that has supported school choice initiatives — backs it.

The key question is how to fund it and how to distribute the aid. It's a difficult question to answer with every cent in the 2016 budget proposal accounted for and fierce debates surrounding the state's public pension fund.

Bob Garguilo, chairman of the board of the Interdistrict Public School Choice Association, has suggested ideas focused on distribution. One includes divvying up the share dedicated to the program evenly, rather than by a complicated formula that's currently used. That formula results in some schools getting as little as $4,600 while others get as much as $14,000. If the aid were evenly distributed among the approximately 5,200 students in the program each of them would carry about $10,500 in aid.

He also said the state could gradually reduce funding for school choice aid per student over a number of years to allow district officials to adequately budget.

Despite the uncertainty, supporters of the program like Garguilo say they're hopeful the program's popularity will help sustain it.

"I'm optimistic because it's a very successful program. It's obvious parents are interested in choice for their children," he said.

Rebecca Perrone, of Willingboro, was one of those parents frustrated by the cap. She says she filled out all the required paperwork correctly and on time but her third-grade daughter failed to win a lottery that would have sent her daughter to the school of her choice.

Luckily, she says, her daughter was able to move in with her father in Burlington Township where she said the schools were better than in Willingboro. But the school choice program was worth jumping at even if it hadn't worked out, she said.

"I was disappointed," Perrone said. "As a parent you want what's best for your children."