Trenton takes our tax dollars and is supposed to send us a specified amount of state aid for our schools in return. But it doesn’t, and it hasn’t ever since the underfunded School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) was enacted in 2008. Verona has gotten $6 million less than it should have, which is part of the reason why our Board of Education is asking voters for $27.7 million in two referendums this November. A bill signed by Gov. Phil Murphy in 2018 was supposed to fix the inequities in SFRA’s funding formula, but it hasn’t.
So MyVeronaNJ.com asked all four candidates running for the two seats in the state Assembly’s 26th legislative district what they would do to assure that Trenton fully funds all schools. We got a response from Republican incumbent BettyLou DeCroce and Democratic challengers Christine Clarke and Verona resident Laura Fortgang. Assemblyman Jay Webber, the other Republican incumbent, once again did not respond. He blocked MyVeronaNJ.com on Twitter during his unsuccessful race for Congress in 2018 and has not unblocked it despite a a federal district court ruling that politicians who do so are violating the First Amendment.
QUESTION 3: How will you get Trenton to fully implement the school funding formula?
MyVeronaNJ.com is partnering on this series with MorristownGreen.com, another independently owned local news site. Every Friday until October 25, we send the four candidates a question that they must respond to by noon on the following Tuesday. In week 1, we asked the candidates what they would do to provide tax relief. In week 2, we asked about affordable housing. The candidates’ responses are listed in the order in which they were received, and have not been edited in any way, whether for grammar, spelling or length.
Please click on the arrows to see all the answers.
