NJ lawsuit seeks to halt state borrowing for new school construction
According to the Newark Star-Ledger, conservative activist and possible New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Steven Lonegan has filed a lawsuit challenging that state’s plan to borrow $3.9 billion to build dozens of new schools around the state. The lawsuit, filed in state Superior Court in Bergen County, seeks to stop Gov. Jon Corzine and state officials from contracting with the Economic Development Authority (EDA) to sell the bonds to investors. Instead, the new debt would have to be approved in a voter referendum. Gov. Corzine on July 9 enacted legislation narrowly approved by lawmakers that authorized the new debt. About $3 billion will be spent to build new schools in the state's poorest school districts, while the rest will be invested in other districts. With interest, the bonds will cost more than $7 billion by the time they are repaid more than three decades from now. Mr. Lonegan, a vocal critic of Gov. Corzine's financial policies, is state director of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a conservative group that advocates limited government and low taxes.
According to Sean Darcy, the governor’s spokesman, the governor “believes that there is a legal and moral obligation to ensure every child in New Jersey has a safe, clean, healthy environment to learn in without any further delay.” He added: “We also believe it is imperative to begin to get shovels in the ground as quickly as possible to create jobs in New Jersey in the face of this national recession.” State Sen. Leonard Lance, who filed a successful 2004 lawsuit that prompted the New Jersey Supreme Court to forbid the use of bonds to close a budget gap, opposes the latest school construction bond issue as “a circumvention of the intent of the Constitution.” But Frank Belluscio, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association (NJSBA), predicted the lawsuit will fail because the state’s highest court issued an order that new schools must be built and ruled that independent state agencies like EDA can secure debt without voter approval. Without state bonds, he warned, the cost of building schools would fall heavily on local taxpayers.
Source: Newark Star-Ledger, 7/29/08, By Joe Donohue
[Editor’s Note: More information on Mr. Lonegan’s suit is available below on the AFP’s website. Background on the New Jersey Supreme Court decision referred to by Mr. Belluscio of the NJSBA is at the second link. Research documenting the connection between quality of facilities and other educational outcomes, including in New Jersey, is available from the Building Educational Success Together (BEST), a national coalition of organizations focused on facilities issues, at the last link.]
AFP-NJ website
NSBA School Law pages on Abbott v. Burke
BEST information on school facilities and educational outcomes