Montclair receives 83% of state aid required by the New Jersey School Funding Reform Act (SFRA), according to the Education Law Center (ELC) – a two million dollar shortfall, this year alone. Is it surprising? New Jersey’s municipal finance is in a continuous state of low-grade financial crisis – like having
I recently compared the Montclair school district to Milburn and Cedar Grove. In each case, I found relative inequities in funding for Montclair. Friends suggested, if you want it to be meaningful, it needs to be broader. So I compared Montclair and Essex County to every school district in New
Financial mismanagement isn’t the only story in the Montclair School District. Yes, the district screwed up, and it’s hard to believe the business administrator received a performance bonus when she allegedly hid unpaid invoices in her desk drawers, so she could meet her targets. But the story is
The desk-drawers were stuffed with unpaid bills. It's occupant, the business administrator, had left, and the new superintendent was left holding evidence of more than $12.6m in outstanding, unbudgeted obligations. The Montclair school district owes $12.6m in accumulated deficits and is facing a $7.6m structural
How a 1990 tax rebellion rewired the state’s finances and set the stage for decades of rising property taxes The phone rang. "Hi, my name is John Budzash,” the caller said, “and I want to talk to John and Ken about organizing a protest where we all link
Dear Senators Booker, Schumer and and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Hope you’re well. I recently wrote you a letter regarding Emil Bove. I was disappointed in your legalistic, procedural approach to resisting his appointment. It felt empty. I asked you to begin, instead, with our ideals, so you
A letter to our elected representatives on the occasion of the government as a teacher Dear Senators Blumenthal, Booker, Hirono, Padilla, Schiff, Welch, and Whitehouse: I hope you’re well. I live in New Jersey, and I have been grateful for your contributions as Senators. Your oversight on the appointment
In June 1931, Ohio Senator Simeon Fess took the stage at the Willard Hotel in Washington DC. President Hoover was running for reelection, and Assistant Secretary Snyder hoped to rile up the convention of Young Republicans. Senator Fess exclaimed from the podium, “When the American people realize what President Hoover
Until this week it was never quite clear to a considerable body of intelligent citizens why a sufficient plurality of voters in the United States would flock to a reality television star whose casual relationship with the truth would frame a day of riot, rapine, and insurgency at the Capitol
This is a picture of the New York Stock Exchange in 1975. That’s when the SEC abolished fixed trading commissions and invented discount brokerages. The SEC abolished fixed brokerage commissions on May 1st – ending a 183 year old practice of exchange-mandated commission rates. The market would set the commissions,
UBS shared a lesson in understatement last week when analyst Karl Keirstead wrote, “Customer efforts to optimize/trim their cloud spend are well beyond any historical norm.” One could almost hear the frenzied IT staff yanking blue cables out of servers and powering down the racks. Amazon and Microsoft all