Forced School Consolidation
https://patch.com/new-jersey/chatham/s/gpvuc/27-proposed-laws-pushed-nearly-300-nj-school-districts-may-go?utm_source=alert-breakingnews&utm_medium=email&utm_term=weather&utm_campaign=alert
Looks like the State may finally be forcing smaller schools to consolidate. A preliminary looks puts Great Meadows, Allamuchy, and Mansfield will all be forced to join a regional district so there will be less overhead and less home rule.
I'm just shocked our State Legislature actually introduced a bill to try and save taxpayers money!
jnnjr 
Nosila At least it’s a start. New Jersey has way too many school systems each with its own Superintendent.
3wbdwnj Anyone see estimates for cost savings on this regionalization? I don’t imagine it will be enough to spin off cash, more like slow the increase.
Since we spend average to less than average per pupil up here, who knows, regionalization might even cost us a few buck as we “blend” the pet pupil costs.
Still the right thing to do Imo.
StrangerDanger 
iJay 
Caged Animal I'm a little confused.... aren't these elementary schools already part of/connected to a high school? It says they are to merge into a k-12 regional school district. Does that mean they close these elementary schools and put the kids where?? If you look at the list, they want to close ALL the elementary schools that send their kids to Warren Hills? Someone please clarify. I'm not quite understanding. Thanks!
Just Saying.... The list isn't of schools they want to close...the physical school stays open, but the individual "district" goes away and merges first into a k-12 district and at some point later (after a 9 year study) merges again into a county-wide district as l read it. Should cut a lot of administrative waste.
More interesting are the proposals to alter/reduce certain employee benefits. Nothing looks draconian but still, you know there will be push back. Which is a shame because eventually public employees will have to accept some cuts or reductions to benefits or else the state is sunk.
Eperot Cut excessive and underworked highly paid Administrative positions. As we have said many times for example, too many Superintendents in NJ.
iJay - of course that's the deal. But, IMO, that's a pruning, not a windfall. Still can't find cost reduction estimates for this.
"More interesting are the proposals to alter/reduce certain employee benefits." Boom, IMO, these are the big ones. Haven't seen much cost saving estimates here, but IMO they will be some pretty good ones.
For example 401/pension changes: "The Senate president’s office estimated the reforms would reduce the state’s pension contributions by $17.1 billion over 30 years and local governments’ contributions by $7.6 billion over 30 years."
They are proposing health care caps move from 90% (platinum) to 80% (gold) or a Medicare level. Not sure the savings but should be pretty good.
There's lots of other stuff proposed like grants to help municipalities share services, ending doubling dipping on benefits, and more. Pretty progressive schedule of fairly conservative ideas.
BUT we need those cost savings estimates to really know what the priority might be for what looks like more efforts than ever would come to fruition. It would be nice to focus on the big hitters. Otherwise: having lost sight of our objective to lower costs while maintaining or enhancing services, we decided to redouble our efforts..... :>(
Just Saying,
My guess is, for this area, Great Meadows and Allamuchy school districts (and boards of education) would be disbanded and would join the “Hackettstown Regional School District”. One BoE, one Super. Initially, all the schools should stay in place, but the new district may decide to close/re align schools from there.
Think of this as not closing schools, but removing boards of education and upper administration.
All good things that need to happen and should have happened long ago. Too much administration overlap and trumped up salaries. Put them all on a GS pay scale.
NJ has just too much government.
Don SD, it is a start, a good start. To do nothing is to concede that NJ is for the public unions first, taxpayers second; it should be the other way around!
https://www.nj.com/politics/2019/05/what-you-need-to-know-about-top-democrats-huge-nj-plans-for-pensions-merging-schools-and-more.html
I think we should set up some obstacle courses to help us determine who to "vote off this island."
Snoozer I thin they got some voting to do and its a big package of changes. The “support” ads are already starting to run.
Skippy 
CraftBeerBob "A preliminary looks puts Great Meadows, Allamuchy, and Mansfield will all be forced to join a regional district "
Why do you think these districts would come together?
NJMOMNJMOM, what would happen under the consolidation is all sending schools would be part of a K-12 district having the same Superintent, sharing certain special education services, and eliminating the overlap in certain specialized. Monies would be saved on administrative costs.
Julia School consolidation will not happen for years until they resolve the financial and control impediments preventing a solution. There are other concerns as well that those on the outside do not even know what they do not know. If anyone thinks doing away with Superintendents and "administrators" will fix the cost problem they are sadly mistaken and will be disappointed.
Jono This is absolutely necessary. Again long overdue. Such a taxpayer drain is our overburdened and over duplicated education system. Next they should go after eliminating duplicative municipal services.
Anyone see a schedule or the cost savings? Can't seem to find the info yet. Starting to wonder if this will be in our lifetime... or just the pipe dream that Sweeny has because he can't get legal weed...… I mean if you can't pass legal weed, what chance does this have :>)
The most immediate way to save money on education is to eliminate the layers of bureaucracy at the NJ Dept of Ed whose only job seems to be creating unfunded mandates. Then remove the 21 superintendents and their bureaucracy at the county level. That will be a easy, fast and helpful first start.
sounds like a terrible idea. i'm in independence. we're nearly identical to liberty. and yet, you often get conflict and disagreement on how we should operate. so you want to join by county? so we could join pburg, one of the lowest rated school districts in the state? we'd end up sending our money to pburg, at best.
I have lived in a number of county-wide districts and they seem to be better.
I am all for local governance in that you can get better focus to local issues plus a potential greater number of fantastic ideas from a diverse seedbed of creative solutions.
Our school system does not seem to be that case. Instead we seem to have 21 fiefdoms of mediocrity instead of one great kingdom run by the best from the 21 smaller units.
Not to mention potential cost savings although I continue to believe this will be a base hit of savings, not a home run of savings.
Now the pension / healthcare and other proposals look to cut more costs while providing adequate, and competitive, benefits. Man, their proposed 401K has a guaranteed 4% return for example. Wow, I wish I had that.....
Soon teaching will be like those online gambling sites. One live blackjack dealer per ten thousand people. One teacher. One subject each, but 10 thousand students per teacher. All school work is done online, and would be graded, using an application. I could see it happening. Colleges do this, already. A lot of professors lost their jobs.
I was always told that “regional” schools caused higher property taxes.
Guilty-Remnant I live in Allamuchy, anything we can do to disband our woefully inept BOE, I’m all for. This consolidation can’t happen soon enough as far as I’m concerned.
Happy in life This is mansfield in burlington county. Our mansfield in warren county is already regionalized. Our children go to wareen hills middle and high school.
Both mansfields are listed. My mistake. Not sure where they will regionalize us to since were already regional.
All righty then --- think I have the answer.
We don't know the savings.
and
It won't be done in our lifetime....chances are your kids will matriculate before they regionalize.....
This "plan" was started under Corzine, rekindled under Christy and now is reborn again under Murphy/Sweeny. This time the State will fund the studies, a reason it sputtered out before.
The "plan" calls for individual study, and if you can't perform this with someone else's money, then a regional guy will do it for you, or to you, depending on your viewpoint. It seems odd that there is not a "cookie cutter" template already available and that, instead, Sweeny is asking everyone basically to "roll their own." Can't imagine the consistency of the outcome..... But heh, maybe when we actually see a legislative bill......
Here's a nice summary of our 3-year+ journey as well as the other 6 education items on the table. It is nice to have an agenda though. https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/19/05/19/sweeney-delivers-seven-bills-that-take-on-thorny-issues-in-nj-education/
Enjoy! and comment away......
Oops, I take it back. Sweeny is on tap saying it will save one billion dollars. Don't know if that's every year, in ten years, or once in a lifetime.....
As Chief Dan George famously said: "I will endeavor to persevere."
Do YOU have any ideas other than it won't happen in our lifetime. IMHO, the worst thing to do, is to do NOTHING. Things can be further changed down the road, start with something, open the crack, see where it goes -- which can't be worse than where we are now!
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