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Janellen Duffy, Director of Policy for the Governor: There is a lot of legends about the background on the
non operating school districts and it has to do with towns breaking off
from other towns for various reasons.
In the case here in Haddonfield, Tavistock separated from Haddonfield
because...there is two back stories here on this.
One is that Tavistock has a country club and they wanted
to be able to serve drinks there and Haddonfield was a dry town
and the second is that Tavistock wanted to be able to allow golf at the country club
and that golf was not allowed to be played on Sundays in Haddonfield.
And so the towns separated off, and in so doing, created another school district.
And yet over time, the students from Tavistock started coming back to Haddonfield.
I think in each non operating school district, it is a unique circumstance about what has happened.
And in some cases, the non ops actually ran schools but over time they realized
it was not very cost efficient to do it and so they made an arrangement with a neighboring school district.
Probably at that point, that is when they should have decided to actually merge
with the other school district because that would have made the most sense.
Governor Jon S. Corzine: Since 1951, there have been only ten consolidations in the
state of New Jersey with regard to schools.
We are taking a step in this time frame to bring about 26. Think about Maryland.
Maryland has 24 school districts and it has almost the same performance,
not quite as good, but almost the same performance as we have in the state of New Jersey
and they have dramatically less cost with roughly the same population.
Chris Emigholz, Director, Education Policy for NJBIA: We have about 22,000 members
throughout the state and on behalf of them, I want to thank the governor and thank all of you for the opportunity
to publicly support consolidation and reutilization.
It is a business issue and we need to do this for the tax payers of the state, but also it improves
quality for the state, for the students, who are the users of government services.
We have too many school districts and we need to start chipping away at this
and this bill represents a great first step to do just that.
And not even that, it gives the Commissioner of Education and the state the power
to soften any possible negative impacts of a consolidation and do it the right way.
So that it is the best, again, for the students, for the taxpayers, for the people of New Jersey.
Assemblywoman Celeste Riley, 3rd Legislative District: I am a school teacher in a very
small school district in Cumberland County and we are actually going through this
process and to actually feel the emotions and the pain of actually merging schools,
they need a tool.
And this piece of legislation gives them the tool and it shows them how
and how they can do it with respect to all parties involved.
Janellen Duffy: We have gotten a lot of pushback from folks who say,
Janellen Duffy: We have gotten a lot of pushback from folks who say,
do not fix this, it is not broken.
We have got an arrangement, we like our arrangement.
The good thing about this bill is that it keeps the arrangement in terms
of the educational placement of the students, but it is getting rid
of those non operating districts so that therefore it is getting rid of any of the administrative costs
that are incurred by those non operating districts, including things like
a part-time business administrator or maybe someone who figures out
the busing schedule, positions along those lines.
Governor Corzine: I think this is a very, very important step.
I can not understand why it took us from 1969 to today,
but this group of legislators, and I hope you know this governor,
are committed to making sure that we strive to those efficiencies,
that we reduce the size of government where it is appropriate
and that we make sure that we maintain the quality of services and go forward.