Citizens
get tax convention panel's ears first
Hearings kick
off task force job to set conclave's rules
Sunday, October 03, 2004 • BY ROBERT SCHWANEBERG •
Star-Ledger Staff
Should individuals at a
convention called to cut property taxes be allowed to
rewrite the constitutional guarantee that all New Jersey
public school students are entitled to a thorough and
efficient education?
How would delegates to
such a convention be elected, and should they be paid?
Should state lawmakers, having failed to control property
taxes, be banned from serving as delegates?
Those are just some of the
questions a 15-member task force must resolve by year's end.
And while the task force plans to get advice from legal
experts, it will start its work by seeking the views of
those who would have the final say on a convention's
recommendations: the voting public.
The Property Tax
Convention Task Force will hold the first of three public
hearings tomorrow afternoon in Paramus. Additional hearings
are scheduled for West Windsor and Blackwood.
Holding public hearings is
a wise strategy that carries inevitable risks, said Gerald
Benjamin, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
of the State University of New York at New Paltz and a
veteran of similar task forces in the Empire
State.
It is wise, Benjamin said,
because "for the legitimacy of the process, you have to
reach out." The risk is one Benjamin saw firsthand as
director of research for a commission set up to plan a
constitutional convention for New York. "We got lots of
people venting on lots of things," he said.
Task force leaders are
braced for a flood of complaints about New Jersey's sky-high
property taxes. Carl Van Horn, the Rutgers University
professor who chairs the task force, said such gripes will
help document the need for a constitutional
convention.
"Part of what we're
supposed to do is study the need for a convention. We're
building a record," Van Horn said.
But rather than ideas on
how to cut property taxes, the task force really needs
advice on how a constitutional convention should be set up,
Van Horn said.
"Our job is not to fix it.
Our job is to structure the process," said Michael Cole, a
lawyer and vice chairman of the task force. "We're trying to
tell people: Help us structure the convention if there is to
be one."
Van Horn said the most
important question -- and the most controversial -- is what
a constitutional convention would be allowed to debate.
Certain topics were off the table at both of New Jersey's
last two constitutional conventions, in 1966 and
1947.
REVISE THE FORMULA?
Debate already is raging
on whether a convention should be allowed to propose
revisions to the New Jersey Constitution's guarantee of a
"thorough and efficient" education in the public school
system.
The New Jersey Supreme
Court has interpreted that clause to require high levels of
state aid to the poorest school districts to bring their
funding up to the richest districts. Sending high levels of
state aid to poorer districts restricts aid to other
schools, forcing a greater reliance more on property
taxes.
One task force member,
Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon), has
proposed a revision that would effectively overturn those
Supreme Court rulings. The Republican state chairman, Sen.
Joseph Kyrillos (R-Monmouth) said the thorough and efficient
guarantee should be up for discussion.
"No constitutional
convention aimed to deal with the property tax problem in
New Jersey can be successful if it doesn't look at the
school finance formula," Kyrillos said. "We might as well
not even have it."
David Sciarra, executive
director of the Education Law Center, which has waged a
long-running court battle that increased state aid to poor
school districts, said, "This convention should in no way be
involved in questions of public school funding.
"The last thing we want to
do is have a constitutional convention turn the clock back
30 years to the days when the quality of the education you
got depended on where you live," Sciarra said. He predicted
a convention would become a "Trojan horse" to "finance
property tax relief by cutting funding for public
schools."
That contention is
vehemently disputed by William Schluter, a former state
senator who is a leading proponent of a convention to reform
property taxation. He said the nonprofit Coalition for the
Public Good brought citizens together for mock conventions a
year ago and again last June. Both times, he said, the
delegates "were very clear they did not want property tax
reductions on the backs of urban schools."
Other issues for the task
force include how delegates would be elected and how a
convention would be run. How well the task force handles
those details "can be critical to the success" of any
convention that is held, Benjamin said.
Robert Schwaneberg covers legal issues. He can be reached
at rschwaneberg@starledger.com or (609) 989-0324.
Copyright 2004 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
|