Will Long Branch lose Abbott designation? Commissioner to revise criteria for funding; list due in June BY CHRISTINE VARNO Staff Writer LONG BRANCH –– The city school district has been receiving Abbott funding for over a decade, but a new report could recommend that the district be disqualified. State Education Commissioner William Librera is slated to submit a report next month updating economic requirements for Abbott designation, according to Richard Vespucci, spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Education. “[Librera] wrote a discussion paper in 2003 where he said it is a different world today than the time when districts received their [Abbott] designation,” Vespucci said in an interview last week. “There are other school districts that have gone down since that time,” he said. “[The report] will be a follow-up to what he started in 2003. It is a review to see who should get the Abbott designation,” Vespucci said. Librera’s report will be submitted on June 15 to the Legislature, according to Vespucci, who said if the commissioner’s suggestions in the report are accepted, some districts will lose their current designation while other non-Abbott districts will gain the designation. The Office of Legislative Services (OLS), a nonpartisan agency that provides services to the Legislature, identified 13 districts — based on Librera’s suggestions in his 2003 report — that could lose their designation. They include: Long Branch, Burlington, Elizabeth, Garfield, Gloucester, Harrison Township, Hoboken, Jersey City, Millville, Neptune Township, Pemberton Township, Phillipsburg Township and Vineland. “Long Branch is an Abbott success story,” Long Branch Superintendent of Schools Joseph M. Ferraina said in an interview earlier this week. “We are improving every day, and hopefully we can continue to do that.” “I think Long Branch still meets the economic standards to be classified as Abbott,” he said, adding, “but I feel that all school districts should be funded at an Abbott level.” “We need to continue getting the appropriate funding to finish what we started.” Abbott districts are the result of 13 Abbott v. Burke decisions by the New Jersey Supreme Court that identified school districts as “poorer urban districts” and ruled that “given sufficient attention in an adequately financed system using the best knowledge and techniques available, a through and efficient education is achievable,” Librera stated in his report. Long Branch was identified as one of the original 28 districts in 1990, a determination made by the Legislature, the New Jersey Board of Education and the commissioner of education. It remains one of the state’s 31 Abbott districts today. There are three themes in the record of the Abbott decisions that provide the basis for the designation and classification of Abbott districts, according to Librera. They are: • Abbott designation consistently spotlights poorer urban districts; • Abbott designation relies on a two-part test, educational adequacy and concentrated poverty; and • Abbott designation is a remedy, not a reward. To date, Long Branch has received $61,893,168 from the state in Abbott school funding for use in construction projects, facilities improvements, teacher salaries and other expenditures aimed at improving the community’s educational quality. The amount received has increased almost annually. In 1998, for example, Long Branch received $858,381. For the 2004-2005 school year, the city school district is receiving a total of $15,385,636. The projected spending for the 2005-2006 school year in Long Branch is based on the cost-of-living increase. At this time, the 2005-2006 school year budget is currently being developed. According to the New Jersey Schools Construction Corp., the state has authorized about $246 million for construction spending in New Jersey and allotted $167 million for the Long Branch schools. That money comes from a rapidly dwindling $8.6 billion fund created by the state Legislature for New Jersey school construction. Of the $8.6 billion, $6.5 billion funds Abbott district programs. If Long Branch is classified as a non-Abbott district by the Legislature as the result of recommendations in Librera’s report in June, the district will still receive all money already approved, according to Vespucci. “The commissioner’s report indicates that any current Abbott district which no longer meets the criteria for continued Abbott designation would continue to receive 100 percent school facilities funding for any projects that are in the design or construction phase,” according to an analysis on the OLS Web site. Vespucci added that if a district lost its designation, it would not lose 100 percent Abbott funding the following year, but rather be “phased-out.” “There will be a transition period,” he said. “If you are an Abbott district and receive $10 million a year, the next year maybe you will get $8 million, then $6 million, and so on.”