BOE Elections (SOMSD)

annielou said:
You are plucking examples that are not typical. One of my first questions in this thread was whether there are statistics regarding senior home ownership. Then ,yes , we can have an adult conversation.

 I don't know what you're talking about.  Each of my posts has been in response to you.  Again and again you have expressed concern for the senior community which in my opinion already has built-in sympathy and legislation that no other group has.  

You offered two “what if” scenarios: a senior has had several children benefit from the school system, and, some people pay taxes and send their children to private schools. My assertion is that those are both atypical situations, and a solid accounting of how taxes affect senior home ownership is in order. My opinion is that somewhat of a base line can be established possibly via online surveys, which seem to be the go to means for gleaning opinions in SOMA. 

annielou said:
You offered two “what if” scenarios: a senior has had several children benefit from the school system, and, some people pay taxes and send their children to private schools. My assertion is that those are both atypical situations, and a solid accounting of how taxes affect senior home ownership is in order. My opinion is that somewhat of a base line can be established possibly via online surveys, which seem to be the go to means for gleaning opinions in SOMA. 

A great many seniors especially those 80+ do not use a computer and have no interest in doing so.  You would need a combination of on-line and hard copy surveys.  

About three years ago, the towns of Maplewood and South Orange developed and made available a comprehensive survey to determine seniors demographic characteristics, awareness of senior services and programs then available, and seniors needs and wants.  The response in terms of percent of seniors responding compared with estimated number of seniors in both towns combined was pitiful. Mot of those responding were long time residents who were active in the community.  

You would need to solve the problem of how to reach a representative sample of  all the seniors in both towns before you could come up with meaningful results and you would need to make that survey available on multiple platforms in multiple locations.  Then we have the problem of non-English speaking seniors from a wide range of ethnic/language backgrounds.  To reach this population you would need multiple translators.  If someone has a workable, cost effective method of reaching this population and obtaining a large enough representative sample so as to have statistically reliable results, please share your approach.  

annielou:  The Maplewood Seniors Advisory Committee will be at the Maplewood Memorial Library, 51 Baker Street,  on November 17, 2018 from 10 am to noon to listen to seniors' needs and concerns and provide information regarding what we are doing to make Maplewood more age friendly.  If you are available, I hope you will come so we can discuss your concerns regarding affordability in more detail.

annielou said:
You offered two “what if” scenarios: a senior has had several children benefit from the school system, and, some people pay taxes and send their children to private schools. My assertion is that those are both atypical situations, and a solid accounting of how taxes affect senior home ownership is in order. My opinion is that somewhat of a base line can be established possibly via online surveys, which seem to be the go to means for gleaning opinions in SOMA. 

You think it’s atypical for senior citizens living here to have sent their children through this school District?  Really?  

I assume there are senior newsletters that go out into the community as well as the general community newsletters, if we are talking about mailers and under the door communications. Any sort of outreach that goes out into the community should be available in at least four languages. Also does the census provide relevant information about our towns? I think a multi-pronged approach might help with research regarding this specific issue.

Red_Barchetta said:

annielou said:
You offered two “what if” scenarios: a senior has had several children benefit from the school system, and, some people pay taxes and send their children to private schools. My assertion is that those are both atypical situations, and a solid accounting of how taxes affect senior home ownership is in order. My opinion is that somewhat of a base line can be established possibly via online surveys, which seem to be the go to means for gleaning opinions in SOMA. 

You think it’s atypical for senior citizens living here to have sent their children through this school District?  Really?  

Yes, I’m confused by this statement. Most seniors have sent their children through the district. In fact, I’d say probably the majority did. Others may have used private school. 

I’ll add that a solid school system benefits everyone. And helps us all in our property values. People WANT to move here. 

JBennett said:

max_weisenfeld said:

GoSlugs said:
I know this is purely theoretical but what is the rational behind funding local services through property taxes instead of income taxes?

 Property taxes are a much more predictable income stream for government.  while in a recession the take from income taxes varies widely, the take from property taxes remains about the same from year to year.  This allows for more effective planning and less likelihood of falling into an unintended deficit.  

Ideally, one would balance income, consumption, fee, and wealth streams in funding government.  Consumption taxes are sales taxes, VATs, and such.  Wealth taxes are mostly property taxes.  Part of the debate over inheritance taxes are whether an inheritance is preexisting wealth or income (to the heir).

 I don't disagree with what max_weisenfeld is saying above, but for NJ, the problem is more one of comparatively high local spending and not insufficient income taxes.  Even if you rebalanced NJ's taxes so that money that is currently raised via property taxes were raised by the income tax, you would still have an affordability problem because as you are easing the property tax you are making the income tax worse and NJ's income taxes don't have far to rise before we are hopelessly non-competitive.
For New Hampshire and Texas, and to a lesser extent Illinois, low or nonexistent income taxes do explain why property taxes are high, but New Jersey has one of the country's highest income taxes.
There are different analyses out there of which states have the highest tax burdens (ie, taxes as a share of GDP), but USA Today ranks NJ at #3 behind NYS and CT, however, given the amount of revenue that NYS derives from out-of-staters, I would say that NJ's taxes are really #2 in terms of tax burden.
So it's a spending problem, not a balance problem.

 I was speaking entirely theoretically, to explain why property taxes are used.

Fixing NJ's tax situation is way above my pay grade.

GoSlugs said:

JBennett said:

max_weisenfeld said:

GoSlugs said:
I know this is purely theoretical but what is the rational behind funding local services through property taxes instead of income taxes?

 Property taxes are a much more predictable income stream for government.  while in a recession the take from income taxes varies widely, the take from property taxes remains about the same from year to year.  This allows for more effective planning and less likelihood of falling into an unintended deficit.  

Ideally, one would balance income, consumption, fee, and wealth streams in funding government.  Consumption taxes are sales taxes, VATs, and such.  Wealth taxes are mostly property taxes.  Part of the debate over inheritance taxes are whether an inheritance is preexisting wealth or income (to the heir).

 I don't disagree with what max_weisenfeld is saying above, but for NJ, the problem is more one of comparatively high local spending and not insufficient income taxes.  Even if you rebalanced NJ's taxes so that money that is currently raised via property taxes were raised by the income tax, you would still have an affordability problem because as you are easing the property tax you are making the income tax worse and NJ's income taxes don't have far to rise before we are hopelessly non-competitive.
For New Hampshire and Texas, and to a lesser extent Illinois, low or nonexistent income taxes do explain why property taxes are high, but New Jersey has one of the country's highest income taxes.
There are different analyses out there of which states have the highest tax burdens (ie, taxes as a share of GDP), but USA Today ranks NJ at #3 behind NYS and CT, however, given the amount of revenue that NYS derives from out-of-staters, I would say that NJ's taxes are really #2 in terms of tax burden.
So it's a spending problem, not a balance problem.

 Why is our spending so high?  Is this something that could be solved through consolidation?

I can only answer this in detail in education, although I know for a fact that NJ's other local government spending, like in police & fire, is also very high, with high staff ratios and high salaries.

First, for education, I should give some context before trying to answer the _why_ of NJ's high spending.

School spending per student (source, governing mag, original source US Census.)

NYS  $22,366
CT  $18,958
NJ $18,402
VT $17,873
AK $17,510
WY $16,442
MA  $15,593
RI  $15,532
PA  $15,418
NH  $15,340
DE  $14,713
MD  $14,206

Notice the other high-income blue states whose spending isn't particularly high; Massachusetts and Maryland.  More on them later.

Many people claim that NJ's school spending is high because we are a high-income state, but NJ's school spending is the country's second highest as a percentage of state GDP at 4.6%.  (see Tax Effort)

I think New Jersey's extremely high spending can best be explained in comparison to Massachusetts and Maryland.

The New York State comparison is not relevant, IMO, because New York State receives monstrous income tax revenues from Wall Street and from the plutocrats who live in New York City (NYS has >80 billionaires).  NYS's income taxes per capita is $2345, versus NJ only getting $1488 per capita.  

1.  Massachusetts

Massachusetts used to have the country's worst tax burden in the 1970s.  It was Massachusetts people themselves who came up with the "Taxachusetts Label" and indeed Massachusetts merited that label then.  

Like New Jersey, Massachusetts has really bad local governmental fragmentation.  Their school districts per student is the effectively the same as NJ's.  Like NJ, they are a strongly Democratic state and a high-income state.  

What changed Massachusetts is that in 1980 the voters passed, through referendum, "Proposition 2.5" which was a tax cap of 2.5%.  NJ didn't get a real tax cap until 30 years later, in 2010.

Due to Prop 2.5 and a 16 year reign of Republican governors from 1991-2007, Massachusetts lowered its tax burden and now is ranked as only an average tax state.   

Massachusetts only has a 5.1% flat income tax, but it actually pulls in more income tax money per capita than NJ, $2115 per capita, which is #2 in the US. 

Massachusetts also has a state aid law that requires the state to pay for a minimum share of a district's spending.  I don't have the details of this at my fingertips, but it's more than the state of NJ pays.  

2.  Maryland

Maryland is an interesting case because it has countywide districts and many New Jerseyans assume that that is the predominant reason for Maryland having lower school spending and taxes due to less administration, but I would argue that view is badly incomplete.

I would argue that these are overlooked factors

- Maryland has local income taxes

- Maryland has local government liquor businesses

- in Maryland the tax levy is set by the county council, not the board of education, and county councils are more taxpayer sensitive.

- Maryland's teachers union is much weaker than NJ's.  NJ's unions got the right to impose agency fees in 1979, MD's unions only got this right in 2013.  

- Maryland's special education law is different than NJ's because it is harder for parents to win a private school placement and therefore MD has about half as many kids in private school placement than NJ.

- Maryland has more kids in private school or being homeschooled, 20% in MD versus about 15% in NJ.  

- Maryland's state aid law is more generous to middle-class district's than NJ's is.  Even Montgomery County and Howard County get $5300-$5500 per student, which is way more than equivalent districts get in NJ (even if you count TPAF.  Baltimore City gets nowhere near as much state aid as an Abbott district would in NJ.

Finally, I would argue that the benefit of having countywide districts isn't in administrative savings, because administration is only about 2-3% of school spending in each state.  Maryland's spending is lower than NJ's across the board, with the exception of school-level administration (ie principals).  Therefore, I think that some of the thinner central office staffing in MD is is compensated for by having higher school-level administrative spending.

I think that Maryland's benefit from having countywide districts is having less interdistrict compeition, since there are no rich districts.  Sure, Maryland has rich towns like Chevy Chase, Potomac, Bethesda, and Ocean City, but they are subsumed within economically diverse big districts and are not have independent school districts that can outspend their neighbors like Mountain Lakes, Princeton, Millburn, Livingston, and (historically) South Orange-Maplewood.    

People in wealthy districts are willing to spend a lot of money because it's going for their own children, they believe it increases property values, and they can afford it anyway.

NJ has been hurt by a phenomenon where rich districts outspend middle-income and low-income districts and then the state was forced by the Supreme Court to equalize spending in the Abbotts, who then outspend low-income non-Abbotts and middle-income districts.  

The interdistrict competition also takes the form of increasing salary guides too.

I think that consolidating districts would produce marginal savings from having fewer administrators,* but in the long run I think it would save a large amount of money by making voters more taxpayer sensitive and reducing interdistrict competition. 

---

*This is a generalization that is most accurate for the suburbs.  In places like Sussex County, Ocean County, Salem, Warren, Atlantic, and Hunterdon that have lost enrollment consolidation would produce larger savings if it allowed districts to close schools.  

---

If you want to read more about the NJ/MD comparison, I have written about it on my blog.

http://njeducationaid.blogspot.com/2017/12/how-maryland-does-it-how-another-deep.html

http://njeducationaid.blogspot.com/2018/03/maryland-state-aid.html

These seem to be the (possibly not final) results. 

https://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2018/11/nj_live_general_election_results_2018_essex_county.html

I've been watching that, but wasn't sure if that includes all votes since at the bottom it says: Precincts still reporting. Stay tuned for final results

sprout said:
I've been watching that, but wasn't sure if that includes all votes since at the bottom it says: Precincts still reporting. Stay tuned for final results

 Hasn't changed for a while. But you're right. I'll add "possibly not final". 

Edited - TapInto.net says this is 94% of districts. Maini and Cuttle are definite, but no clear winner for third between Farfan and Chisholm-Greene. 

From the county site, these totals are little higher, and attributed to 97 percent of the vote counted:

Narda CHISHOLM-GREENE 13.99% 4,795

Michael LASKOWSKI 12.52% 4,293

Bruno J. NAVARRO 7.04% 2,413 

Shannon CUTTLE 17.01% 5,833 

Felisha GEORGE 4.01% 1,374

Avery JULIEN 2.11% 722

Marian CUTLER 6.55% 2,246

James C. WILKES 0.84% 287

Christopher TRZASKA 4.56% 1,562

Annemarie MAINI 17.14% 5,878

Javier A. FARFAN 14.09% 4,831

https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NJ/Essex/92902/Web02.216033/#/

Drilling down, it doesn't look like they've counted yet the mail in votes and provisional ballots.  Given that Javier leads Narda by only 36 votes for the third slot, I don't think we're going to know for sure tonight who will get that seat.

JBennett said:

Notice the other high-income blue states whose spending isn't particularly high; Massachusetts and Maryland.  More on them later.

How do they and New Jersey compare in the percentage of low-income children in public schools? Looks like New Jersey had a point or two more low-income children in general as recently as 2016, but maybe there are better measures.

Red_Barchetta said:

annielou said:
You offered two “what if” scenarios: a senior has had several children benefit from the school system, and, some people pay taxes and send their children to private schools. My assertion is that those are both atypical situations, and a solid accounting of how taxes affect senior home ownership is in order. My opinion is that somewhat of a base line can be established possibly via online surveys, which seem to be the go to means for gleaning opinions in SOMA. 

You think it’s atypical for senior citizens living here to have sent their children through this school District?  Really?  

Who moves here to retire after their kids are out of school?  My guess is almost nobody.

yahooyahoo said:

Red_Barchetta said:

annielou said:
You offered two “what if” scenarios: a senior has had several children benefit from the school system, and, some people pay taxes and send their children to private schools. My assertion is that those are both atypical situations, and a solid accounting of how taxes affect senior home ownership is in order. My opinion is that somewhat of a base line can be established possibly via online surveys, which seem to be the go to means for gleaning opinions in SOMA. 

You think it’s atypical for senior citizens living here to have sent their children through this school District?  Really?  

Who moves here to retire after their kids are out of school?  My guess is almost nobody.

Three houses on my block and one house on the next block.  But it is atypical.

Three of the four houses are all on one floor. 

So, do these results mean, essentially, more of the status quo?

yahooyahoo said:

Red_Barchetta said:

annielou said:
You offered two “what if” scenarios: a senior has had several children benefit from the school system, and, some people pay taxes and send their children to private schools. My assertion is that those are both atypical situations, and a solid accounting of how taxes affect senior home ownership is in order. My opinion is that somewhat of a base line can be established possibly via online surveys, which seem to be the go to means for gleaning opinions in SOMA. 

You think it’s atypical for senior citizens living here to have sent their children through this school District?  Really?  

Who moves here to retire after their kids are out of school?  My guess is almost nobody.

You would be wrong.  With the increase in multifamily buildings in Maplewood and South Orange, a significant number of seniors are moving to Maplewood or South Orange, usually to be closer to adult children and grandchildren.  So many in fact, that we are holding the first ever newcomers luncheon later this month for seniors who have been in town for five years or less.  A number of local apartment buildings are turning into naturally occurring retirement communities. Old perceptions are changing.

GoSlugs said:
So, do these results mean, essentially, more of the status quo?

 In the short term, yes, just like any other BOE election, since only 1/3 of the seats turn over each time.  I also don't see any indication of a sea change or long term trend among the candidates or the electorate towards a great deal of change.  In viewing the debates, my takeaway is that all of the candidates were in general agreement on many of the key issues, including access and equity, the need for the bond issue and redistricting, etc.  Some disagreed on details such as the potential middle school realignment, but no one person on the board could move the needle much on any one issue. 

Since the BOE really serves to shape overarching policies and also hire the superintendent (and not much else), no one election will effect too many direct changes in the schools.  What will have a direct impact will be their choice next year of the new super and their ability to attract a person with the right skills and approach for our district.  It's really the super and the administrators he or she hires and oversees who really shape what happens in the schools on a day to day basis.

GoSlugs said:
So, do these results mean, essentially, more of the status quo?

yes

joan_crystal said:

yahooyahoo said:

Red_Barchetta said:

annielou said:
You offered two “what if” scenarios: a senior has had several children benefit from the school system, and, some people pay taxes and send their children to private schools. My assertion is that those are both atypical situations, and a solid accounting of how taxes affect senior home ownership is in order. My opinion is that somewhat of a base line can be established possibly via online surveys, which seem to be the go to means for gleaning opinions in SOMA. 

You think it’s atypical for senior citizens living here to have sent their children through this school District?  Really?  

Who moves here to retire after their kids are out of school?  My guess is almost nobody.

You would be wrong.  With the increase in multifamily buildings in Maplewood and South Orange, a significant number of seniors are moving to Maplewood or South Orange, usually to be closer to adult children and grandchildren.  So many in fact, that we are holding the first ever newcomers luncheon later this month for seniors who have been in town for five years or less.  A number of local apartment buildings are turning into naturally occurring retirement communities. Old perceptions are changing.

Okay, that's an interesting development.  What percentage of new people moving into SOMA are retirees?

weirdbeard said:

Since the BOE really serves to shape overarching policies and also hire the superintendent (and not much else), no one election will effect too many direct changes in the schools.  What will have a direct impact will be their choice next year of the new super and their ability to attract a person with the right skills and approach for our district.  It's really the super and the administrators he or she hires and oversees who really shape what happens in the schools on a day to day basis.

If you want to be cynical, you could say that the school system is run by a "deep state" that is only changeable on a timescale of years.  

In my opinion, the most important decider in our school district is the administration.  Most members of a Board of Ed feel that it is their job to support the administration and trust them as "the experts."  On some issues, like personnel and how to allocate money, the administration's control is total.  BOE members are told that even if they disagree with a budgeting or personnel decision that they should make that criticism privately, but still support the administration publicly and in voting under "policy governance."  

A BOE also has almost no control over curriculum, although the non-involvement with curriculum is slightly less total than in budgeting and personnel.  

There are almost no policy decisions that really originate with a board.  When I was a board member the only policy change that I thought originated with the board was a trivial one in reversing the ban on homeschoolers playing sports at CHS.  

The second most powerful decider in our school district is the state Department of Education, which, to a degree, is just obeying the federal Department of Education.

A BOE can lay out areas of emphasis for an administration to focus on and set goals, but it has very little control over how those goals are met.  

yahooyahoo said:

What percentage of new people moving into SOMA are retirees?

Who would keep track of this, and how?

DaveSchmidt said:
From the county site, these totals are little higher, and attributed to 97 percent of the vote counted:
Narda CHISHOLM-GREENE 13.99% 4,795
Michael LASKOWSKI 12.52% 4,293

Bruno J. NAVARRO 7.04% 2,413 
Shannon CUTTLE 17.01% 5,833 
Felisha GEORGE 4.01% 1,374
Avery JULIEN 2.11% 722
Marian CUTLER 6.55% 2,246
James C. WILKES 0.84% 287
Christopher TRZASKA 4.56% 1,562
Annemarie MAINI 17.14% 5,878
Javier A. FARFAN 14.09% 4,831

https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NJ/Essex/92902/Web02.216033/#/

 If these are final then winners are Maini, Cuttle, Farfan. Am I correct that Maini and Farfan are incumbents? 

LOST said:

 If these are final then winners are Maini, Cuttle, Farfan. Am I correct that Maini and Farfan are incumbents? 

Not final, and there’s a small enough margin separating third and fourth place that provisional and absentee ballots could change things.

Maini was the only incumbent; she and Farfan ran together.

it was a tough race and having the extra names on the ballot didn't help. I spent time reading through all the statements and had a hard time picking three. 

DaveSchmidt said:

JBennett said:

Notice the other high-income blue states whose spending isn't particularly high; Massachusetts and Maryland.  More on them later.

How do they and New Jersey compare in the percentage of low-income children in public schools? Looks like New Jersey had a point or two more low-income children in general as recently as 2016, but maybe there are better measures.

 I thought the states were pretty similar in terms of low-income children.  According to this WaPo piece, NJ and MA are the same, with MD being a bit higher (37% to 43%).

The difference in low-income students wouldn't account for the difference in spending, and in MD's case spending is much lower than NJ's.

Worth noting that MD and MA are ranked as states with schools just as good as NJ's. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-us-public-school-students-are-in-poverty/2015/01/15/df7171d0-9ce9-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5f006fe1b362

Thanks. The percentages I found were three years fresher, from the National Center for Children in Poverty, but included all children younger than 18, not just those in public schools, like the stats in the Post article.

DaveSchmidt said:

yahooyahoo said:

What percentage of new people moving into SOMA are retirees?

Who would keep track of this, and how?

Joan Crystal said a "significant" number of seniors are moving into our area. If that's the case, she must have some numbers. If she doesn't, her statement is purely anecdotal.