The New Jersey Supreme Court has granted Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s request to hold funding for the state’s poorest school districts flat for the 2006-07 school year.
In a unanimous May 9 ruling, the state’s high court said the 31 Abbott districts—which got their name from long-running litigation over how to properly fund poor school districts—would have to make do with about the same amount of aid in 2006-07 that they did in 2005-06.
The court ruled that the districts could appeal the budgets the state sets for their districts if they could show that a “demonstrably needed” program would be “substantially impaired” by too little funding.
Gov. Corzine, a Democrat, had sought the flat funding in the face of a projected $4 billion budget shortfall. He said it was part of a larger effort to make sure districts were using their state aid efficiently, and, eventually, to review school funding statewide.
