Talks with Corzine have poor schools fretting over funds State's Abbott districts fear budget squeeze Tuesday, October 23, 2007 • BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL • Star-Ledger Staff Superintendents of New Jersey's poorest school districts left a special meeting with Gov. Jon Corzine last week convinced the state's fiscal woes will leave them grappling with little or no increases in state aid in the upcoming state budget. "It wasn't right out saying, 'Flat funding, live with it,'" said Passaic superintendent Robert Holster. "But those of us who have been in the business for a long time could pick up the signals." Corzine said his meeting with superintendents of the 31 school districts awarded special funding under the state Supreme Court's Abbott vs. Burke rulings was not a state aid forecast. "It doesn't portend anything at this stage," the governor said yesterday. Corzine said he "made clear we have severe challenges," but insisted the one-hour meeting convened by state Education Commissioner Lucille Davy at the governor's request was more general in nature. "We were actually having a dialogue about audits and how we communicate with each other and pretty standard sorts of views about performance of our kids," he said. Word of Corzine's unusual meeting with the superintendents came as the issue of how to handle state school aid began heating up. The so-called Abbott districts annually receive about half the $7.5 billion dispensed in state aid. Dozens of suburban school board members from Chatham to Cherry Hill gathered in Trenton yesterday to press for a quick start to public debate over a new state aid formula. Meanwhile, the state Department of Education, in a letter faxed to Abbott district superintendents, said the local officials should build only a cost of living adjustment of 2.89 percent into their upcoming budgets for a court-mandated preschool program that serves tens of thousands of poor youngsters. Corzine, whose administration has been working behind closed doors on a new aid formula, said he hopes to unveil a proposal before the end of the year, but that he will not seek legislative adoption until next year. "It's a good idea to actually have stakeholders have the ability to review what we have put together at this point and begin the dialogue, but it will be one of the issues that needs to be taken up by the new Legislature," Corzine said. "We're weeks from getting it out." Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, a coalition of about 150 suburban school districts that sponsored yesterday's news conference on school funding, said Corzine needs to show his cards quickly. "We have heard talk before," she said. "We are hoping the governor is committed to action and will follow through." The formula is politically volatile because it could shift hundreds of millions of dollars in state aid out of some communities and into others, depending on how the plan evaluates local needs. During his meeting with the Abbott superintendents last week, for example, Corzine warned that lawmakers looking for spare dollars in the face of a $3.5 billion budget shortfall have pressed him to consider diverting at least $450 million in Abbott school aid to other communities, a strategy he said he is resisting. Staff writer Deborah Howlett contributed to this story. Dunstan McNichol may be reached at (609) 989-0341 or dmcnichol@starledger.com. © 2007 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission.