Click here to read "In Need of Healing

New researched released by Dr. Poonam Alaigh, a member of CSI-NJ’s Board of Directors, demonstrates the cost the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will add onto New Jersey’s Medicaid budget, and offers solutions to preserve Medicaid’s safety net while protecting taxpayers from an expected $36 billion cost increase that will occur when an additional one million New Jerseyans enroll in the program by 2023. The research was unveiled as part of a CSI-NJ report, In Need of Healing: Medicaid and the New Jersey Budget.

Federal health care reform expands Medicaid in two ways: it increases eligibility levels, and the individual mandate will cause many New Jersey residents who are eligible for Medicaid, but not enrolled, to sign up for the program. New Jersey will receive no funding above the federal government’s standard 50% reimbursement rate for these patients, creating the higher cost.

CSI-NJ proposes several solutions that were developed during a series of meetings with policy makers, providers, stake holders and health care policy experts. These changes focus on creating choice for patients, innovative approaches to increase access to care, and reforms related to care coordination, long-term care, and the use of health information technology.

To read the report in its entirety, click this link.

About the Author

Dr. Poonam Alaigh, M.D., MSHCPM, FACP, is President of Alaigh Care Associates, and a Member of the Board of Directors at the Common Sense Institute of New Jersey. Prior to joining CSI-NJ, Dr. Alaigh was Commissioner of Health and Senior Services for the State of New Jersey. She has a mufti-faceted background in health care administration and delivery, including practical hospital practice, hospital administration, managed care, pharmaceutical medicine and health care policy.

The tool not only allows taxpayers to compare public pensions to private savings, but also to compare New Jersey public pensions to other states. For example, a male police officer hired in 2000 with 25 years of service and earning $90,000 when he retired at age 55 would collect an annual pension benefit of $58,500. To yield the same income, a private sector retiree would need to have saved $1,279,943 by the same age. If that police officer worked in New York instead of New Jersey, his pension would be $32,850. These estimates do not include the cost of health benefits.

“New Jersey taxpayers now have even greater insight into the good deal public employment has been and continues to be for government workers,” said CSI-NJ President Jerry Cantrell.

To see what your pension would be if you were a public worker in New Jersey, visit http://www.calculateyourpublicpension.com/NJ/

In this new position in the organizational structure, the Development Director will have the opportunity to build the development capability. The most important output of the Development Department is revenue raised. To accomplish that, the Director of Development must raise a significant portion of the Institute’s annual revenue through personal recruitment and ongoing relationships with major donors.

The Director of Development will:

• Develop and implement a cohesive fundraising strategy for the Common Sense Institute, including strategies for high dollar donors; foundations, and corporate donors;

• Work closely with the President to implement the fundraising strategy, including making recommendations on how the President’s time can be most effectively utilized in a fundraising capacity;

• Identify and develop relationships with key individual prospects and record key information about these individuals;

• Solicit current and prospective donors for financial support for the Institute;

• Interact with donors through telephone calls, one-on-one visits, and written correspondence to keep them informed of our work;

• Manage an aggressive, high dollar direct mail program;

• Oversee the planning and implementation of special events;

• Gather and analyze data related to the effectiveness of various aspects of the fundraising strategy;

• Maintain the fundraising database to ensure current data on donors, gifts, and prospects;

• Begin the development of a planned giving program;

• Maintain relationships with charitable foundations that currently support the Common Sense Institute and regularly seek funding from new foundations; and

• Maintain relationships with private corporations that currently support the Common Sense Institute and seek funding from prospect corporations through meetings and written proposals.

The ideal candidate will have the following attributes:

Demonstrated ability to raise funds for organizations;
Entrepreneurial spirit and ability to be a self-starter;
A minimum of five years of experience in fundraising;
Experience with individual donors, foundations, and corporate donors;
Notable relationship building skills, and an outgoing, friendly personality;
Solid writing skills, including proficiency in proposal writing;
Ability to multi-task, organize numerous moving parts of a project, and meet deadlines;
Understanding of and commitment to the principles of limited government, free enterprise, and personal responsibility;
Experience with databases and basic Microsoft Office products, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook;
Excellent communication skills;
Ability to travel on a regular basis;
Bachelor’s degree

The Director of Development can reside anywhere in New Jersey and will work from a virtual office.

This position will require travel throughout the state of New Jersey, as well as occasional travel to other locations around the country. Expected travel: 25%.

Application Process

To apply, please email the following materials to Claire Kittle, Executive Director of Talent Market, who is assisting with the search: Claire@talentmarket.org:

• Résumé

• Cover letter, which must include your philosophical interest in the mission of the organization and your desired salary range

While we thank all applicants in advance for their interest in this position, we are only able to contact those to whom we can offer an interview. No phone calls please.

About The Common Sense Institute of New Jersey

The Common Sense Institute of New Jersey is a nonprofit research and education organization that conducts scholarly research and analysis of New Jersey public policy. The Institute’s mission is to explore and advance public policy alternatives that foster individual liberty, personal responsibility and economic opportunity. Institute staff will pursue this mission by conducting timely research on important issues and then marketing the findings to elected leaders, the media, business leaders, community organizations, and individual citizens.

The Common Sense Institute of New Jersey is governed by an independent Board of Directors and is a nonpartisan, tax-exempt organization. The Institute relies solely on voluntary support from individuals, private foundations and businesses, and as such neither accepts government funding nor conducts contract research.

When New Jersey first authorized charter public schools in the 1990’s, the public was told the charters would operate at 90% of the cost of the host district, saving taxpayer dollars with each family that freely chose this newly-available public education option. Nearly 20 years into this grand experiment, it is clear that the advertised figure is bogus, but not in a way charter critics can use.

In 2010, there were 66 charter schools operating in New Jersey, with many of them operating more than three years. Although the press has covered various aspects of charter school facts, the research comparing charter-per-pupil-expenditure in relation to their host district(s) is lacking.

By statute, charter schools receive funding at 90% of the foundation aid of their host district(s), a percent level that has long been disputed by charter school operators as insufficient and unfair. Recently, the New Jersey Department of Education has been including charter school expenditures in their Taxpayer Guide to Education Spending (formerly Comparative Spending Guide), which forms the financial basis for this simple analysis.

Below is a simple analysis of charter school ‘Total Spending’ and comparative ‘Budget Cost’ data. The ‘Total Spending’ variable, as computed by the New Jersey Department of Education, for the first time includes all expenditures paid by both the school district and the state, including costly pension and health care contributions. Meanwhile, the Budget Cost’ variable includes only those expenditures common to all districts, excluding items such as debt, transportation and other non-comparative expenditures.

At question is whether the charter schools ‘Total Spending’ is much less than their host regular public school districts? Taxpayers and policy makers should consider this analysis as the charter experiment expands. The program is expected to add an additional 15+ schools already approved but not opened, and many more in the review pipeline.

From the 2011Taxpayers Guide to Education Spending, utilizing the 2010 actual numbers for Total Spending and Budgetary Cost, the chart below compares individual charter schools spending levels to their host district. Some charter schools receive a majority of their funding from multiple districts, making a direct comparison impossible.

Key Findings

This analysis is not intended to be comprehensive, but it raises serious questions regarding the range of charter school spending, and the reasons they almost universally receive less than the statute-guaranteed funding levels. The key findings of the analysis are:

• For the former Abbott districts, charter schools receive approximately 65% ‘Total Spending’ funding level compared to their host district, much less than the 90% ‘foundation aid’ level;

• For non-Abbott districts, the funding level range is 56% to 89%, a significant difference in funding level, which reflects large expenditure differences due to student weighting factors and local contribution variation;

• The range of charter per-pupil expenditures for the former Abbott districts range from $10.244 (Camden Institute of Excellence) to $22,222(Camden Promise), requiring further investigation into reasons for large variation across former-Abbott districts;

• The variation of charter school funding within a host district can be significant, requiring further investigation into reasons for large variation;

The analysis for the selected districts is intended to identify basic funding levels, and does not identify productivity, performance or even reasons for funding variation in- and between- districts.

Camden

Camden had eight charter schools in 2010, with Total Spending ranging from $10,244 to $22,222, a difference of $11,978 per pupil. In comparison, the Camden Public School District had a Total Spending of $23,770, with a charter school funding level range of 43% to 93%. The large variation in Camden’s charter school spending is significant, and requires further investigation.

Jersey City

Jersey City identified nine charter schools in operation in 2010, with a Total Spending range of $11,525 to $18,818, a difference of $7,293 per pupil. In comparison, the Jersey City School District had a Total Spending of $21,824, with a charter school funding level range of 53% to 86%. The large variation in Jersey City’s charter school spending is significant, and requires further investigation

Newark

Newark had 13 charter schools operating in 2010,with a Total Spending range of $12,423 to $17,915, a difference of $5,492 per pupil. In comparison, the Newark Public Schools had a Total Spending of $22,992, with a charter school funding level range of 54%to 78%. Although Newark’s variation was less than other former-Abbott districts, it still is significant to require further investigation.

Paterson

Paterson’s two charter schools in 2010 had a Total Spending range of $12,606 to $13,031, a difference of only $425 per pupil. In comparison, the Paterson School District had a Total Spending of $20,229, with a charter school funding level range of 62% to 64%. Paterson funds their charter schools at similar levels.

Plainfield

Plainfield’s three charter schools in 2010 had a Total Spending range of $13,039 to $13,620, a difference of only $581 per pupil. In comparison, the Plainfield School District had a Total Spending of $19,572, with a charter school funding level range of 67% to70%. Plainfield funds their charter schools at similar levels.

Trenton

There were six charter schools operating in Trenton in 2010, which had a Total Spending range of $13,559 to $18,674, a difference of $5,115 per pupil. In comparison, the Trenton Public School District had a Total Spending of $21,038, with a charter school funding level range of 64% to 89%. The large variation in Trenton’s charter school spending is significant, and requires further investigation

Conclusion

There is still much more we need to learn about charter schools, and this quick analysis highlights the large range of funding levels between charter schools and their host districts. Although all charter schools have a Total Spending less than their host districts, there are still many questions on whether this constitutes actual taxpayer savings (since former-Abbott districts receive a SFRA-language 2% annual increase in funding) and whether the addition of 100 new charter schools on an already large fragmented system will have long term consequences.

But on the surface, many charter schools spend only 65% of what it costs for the public schools, making this education option taxpayer-friendly.

Comparing Charter Schools Per-Pupil Costs

This article was first published by InTheLobby.net. To download a copy, click here.

New Jersey Now: January 29, 2012: My9TV.com

The adoption of an Enterprise Value Tax would be especially damaging to New Jersey’s businesses and economy for the following key reasons:

(1) A large portion of New Jersey’s small businesses are structured as partnerships, 172,000 in 2012.

(2) The imposition of an EVT will potentially extract $349 million annually from New Jersey’s economy, working capital that would be better used by New Jersey’s current and future partnerships to expand an already anemic economy.

(3) The EVT will negatively impact New Jersey’s top industries: information, real estate, and finance. These three industries represent $149 billion (31 percent) of the New Jersey economy. The EVT will extract nearly $251 million from these three industries.

(4) From a fiscal federalism standpoint, states that piggyback on the federal income tax code might also adopt the EVT; thereby, compounding the negative economic impact of this change in tax policy.

For these reasons, New Jersey’s state and local policymakers, as well as its Congressional delegation should oppose a federal EVT due to the economic damage it would inflict on New Jersey’s businesses and citizens.

The impact by industry is included in the table below. To read the report in its entirety, click here to download it. Frequently Asked Questions are answered by clicking here.

About the Author

J. Scott Moody (Adjunct Scholar) has worked as a Tax Policy Economist for over 13 years.  He is the author, co-author and editor of 154 studies and books.  He has testified several times before the House Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. Congress as well as various state legislatures.  He has been interviewed by countless newspapers and radio and television stations.  His work has appeared in Forbes, CNN Money, State Tax Notes, Portland Press Herald, New Hampshire’s Union Leader, Hartford Courant, The Oklahoman and Albuquerque Journal.

His professional experiences includes a positions as Senior Economist at The Tax Foundation, Senior Economist at The Heritage Foundation, Vice President of Policy and Chief Economist at The Maine Heritage Policy Center, Research Fellow at The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, and Senior Fellow for Budget and Tax Policy at the Illinois Policy Institute.

Additionally, Scott was recently appointed by Maine’s Governor to the prestigious Consensus Economic Forecasting Commission.

Scott received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Wingate University (Wingate, N.C.).  He received his Master of Arts in Economics from George Mason University (Fairfax, VA)

Charles Murray Discusses Cultural Inequality in the Untied States at the New Jersey Liberty Breakfast

Wednesday, February 15, 2012
8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.

The Stony Hill Inn
231 Polifly Road
Hackensack, New Jersey 07601

$135 includes breakfast, and a hardcover copy of Charles Murray’s latest book Coming Apart

Join us for a breakfast, conversation, and book signing with one of America’s most respected free-market thinkers. Charles Murray is a political scientist, author, and libertarian. He first came to national attention in 1984 with the publication of Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950–1980, which has been credited as the intellectual foundation for the Welfare Reform Act of 1996.

Liberty Breakfast attendees will receive a copy Murray’s latest work, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, just weeks after its release. In the book, Murray argues that American classes have reached a level of separation unlike anything we have ever known. While America has never been a classless society, all classes historically participated in roughly equal levels in a few core behaviors. That has changed, he demonstrates, examining specifically American trends regarding marriage, religion, honesty, and industriousness for the fifty years from 1960 to 2010. Murray argues that America has devolved into a class system where those at the top and those at the bottom barely inhabit the same culture, and this is a threat to our uniquely American civic fabric.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW FOR THIS SPECIAL EVENT

While educators have been working to bring about technology in the classroom through the use of devices such as smart boards and interactive learning, the assessment of all that learning is often put into the same paper-based grade-books that were used when most of us were still in school. As the New Jersey Department of Education and more than 650 public school districts move to more comprehensive student and staff measurement models, the need for valid electronic classroom-level data is critically important. Unfortunately, the integration of electronic classroom grading systems has a long way to go before classroom-based formative and summative scoring can be utilized to comprehensively measure achievement.

Why? Because many districts, including the largest and most-financed, rarely have an all-grade, all-student electronic system that allows teachers to enter quiz, test and project grades into a computer for centralized processing and analysis. At best, report card grades, which are end of semester summative scores, eventually make their way into an electronic system. By that point, educators and policymakers are looking backward at a child’s comprehension and a teacher’s effectiveness, losing irreplaceable time in the process. Even worse, when this delay is coupled with the almost seven months needed to receive state testing information, student and staff grading happens after grade promotion.

What is an electronic grading system, or ‘live grade-book’? On a simplistic level, live grade-book software allows teachers to enter formative ( e.g. quiz and test grade) and summative (i.e. end-course grade) scores into a computerized system throughout the year. The centralized classroom-grading system can then be aligned with state testing scores to identify areas of concern at a student, teacher, and school level. On a more detailed level, live grade-books can act as an interactive platform for administrator, teacher and parent communication, a powerful classroom management tool through scheduling and interim reporting, and becomes a powerful basis for district-to-state data transfer and system-wide analytics.

Live grade-book software is not a new concept, and many districts have implemented any one of the multitude of commercially available products, enabling the districts to matriculate each grade level to the new software. There is a significant up-front software and integration expense, and many small districts do not have sufficient technology staff that can dedicate the time it takes to move even a low-enrollment district to a live grade-book platform. Many larger districts have only some grade levels or teachers consistently using any system. With more than 650 school districts, including charters, it is both economically feasible and necessary for effectiveness that the state to work with existing live grade-book vendors to develop and implement a state-wide web-based platform that provides real-time analytics to all stakeholders.

Below is an example of an intuitive easy-to-use web-based grade-book, and is only one of many free and fee-based live grade-book programs commercially available. The information this grade-book design captures is intuitive of what many non-educators expect is already in progress, but in reality, we have a long way to go before all 1.4 million public student and their teacher classroom-transaction data is captured.

Until the districts and state can capture measurement, evaluation, and assessment data at the student level in a fast-tempo environment, report card and state test analytics will always be lagging. Live grade-books increase the value of formative assessments, and can be used to help change the measured students and teacher behavior in a meaningful, immediate way.

Thirty years ago one of the great strategists of our time, William Boyd, coined the concept of the ‘O-O-D-A’ loop, which stood for observe, orient, decide, and act. Those organizations and individuals who can continuously process faster and faster through the O-O-D-A loop would have a decisive advantage. This concept is critically important when we are trying to change human behavior…response to good and bad behaviors must be immediate to be effective.

We can’t rely on old data to make new decisions. Particularly decisions where students and teachers futures are concerned and where billions of dollars of taxpayers resources are at stake.

About the Author

Mark ‘Jay’ Williams is an Economics Fellow at the Common Sense Institute of New Jersey, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing free-market solutions to the public policy challenges facing New Jersey. Jay writes on economic issues for the K12, Higher Education, and Local Government sectors.

This article was first published by InTheLobby.net.

To download this article as a pdf, click here.

Every year, New Jerseyans get to vote directly on one and only one spending plan — their local school budget.
Research developed by the Common Sense Institute of New Jersey details how voters are confused, promised too much and outright misled before they walk into the voting booth.

Years of legislative and gubernatorial decisions as to how best compare the spending of school districts have been overly generous in their attempts to be fair to the districts, and as a result have lessened the level of honesty with the taxpayers footing the bill. A solution is relatively easy and cheap, if our elected leaders have the political will.

Prior to school budget votes, districts are required to publish a user-friendly budget. The statistical sleight of hand comes in the form of “per-pupil expenditure,” which is the amount a district claims it will spend to educate the “average” student.

The trouble is that the user-friendly budget does not include all spending items, only those spent by virtually every district. For example, because all districts do not have transportation expenses, no districts must include those costs in their per-pupil cost line item that is advertised to the public. It may not be fair to compare a district without busing to one with busing when looking at per-pupil costs, but how does that make it right to hide those costs from taxpayers before they vote on a school budget?

Gov. Chris Christie and the state Department of Education improved the situation earlier this year with the introduction of the Taxpayers’ Guide to Educational Spending, which includes more spending categories. Districts spend an average of $3,500 more per student according to the taxpayers’ guide than the user-friendly budget, and large differences exist in districts of different size, socioeconomic status and location, which should alert taxpayers as to the widespread nature of the problem.

However, even this improved measure is not all-encompassing. For example, the taxpayers guide reports that Asbury Park spent $29,819 per student in 2010, compared with the $26,782 proclaimed by the revised user-friendly budget, but the 2010 audit of Asbury Park revealed spending to be more than $39,000 per student. This is not just a problem in our urban districts, as evidenced by the fact Sea Isle City spent $40,000 per student in 2010, according to its audit. That is more than $14,000 greater than the taxpayers’ guide and $7,400 more per student than in the district’s revised user-friendly budget.

Taxpayers cannot be blamed for not being able to give an accurate answer when asked how much their school system spends to educate a child. And the school districts do not deserve all the blame; they are merely abiding by the laws and regulations put forth by the Legislature and Department of Education. However, districts should be held responsible when they fail to meet per-pupil projections, which is a near certainty in the upcoming year.

In 2010, just 146 school districts (27 percent of those studied) identified an actual per-pupil cost reduction. However, 451 districts (82 percent) told the public they expect to reduce per-pupil costs this coming year. Contracts protecting teachers’ jobs and declining enrollment in districts make this highly unlikely, but taxpayers will have long forgotten the promise by the time the actual numbers come in next spring and they’re asked to vote on yet another misleading budget.

Taxpayers deserve better. As a former school board president, I know firsthand how boards can be influenced by politics, which is part of the reason New Jerseyans need greater transparency from their local school boards. We should mandate statements from independent auditors that next year’s spending projections are reasonable, include all expenses in a school district’s per-pupil expenditure figure and develop a certified productivity measure that integrates outcomes data and is included on all education reports and in your local property tax bill. All of this information should be online and easily searched.

All of this is affordable and necessary to ensure local governments are functioning properly. It is simply a matter of reorienting Trenton’s policy to hold transparency to the taxpayer as the highest maxim, and plain common sense.

This op-ed was originally published by NewJerseyNewsroom.com, The Asbury Park Press, and The Press of Atlantic City.

Mone brings nearly twenty years of experience as Manhattan Institute President to free-market think tank in his home state

The Common Sense Institute of New Jersey (CSI-NJ) welcomed Lawrence J. Mone to its Board of Directors this week. Mone, who has been President of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research since 1995, will provide management guidance and policy advice on research topics related to taxation and economic growth. He is a resident of Hoboken, New Jersey.

“We are elated that Lawrence Mone will be sharing the expertise he gained during more than twenty years of leading one of America’s most influential think tanks,” said CSI-NJ President Jerry Cantrell. “As one of the nation’s newest think tanks, the CSI-NJ has already generated ideas related to government transparency, spending, and property-tax reform that have helped guide policy makers to principled, market-oriented solutions to the challenges facing New Jersey. Larry’s vision on these issues and his esteemed think tank leadership capabilities will greatly enhance our work.”

A Summa Cum Laude graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, Mone taught high school history in Cambridge, Massachusetts for several years before earning a master’s degree in public policy from the University of California at Berkeley in 1982.

Under his leadership, the Manhattan Institute has sponsored and disseminated research on such topics as tax and economic policy, education, welfare reform and crime. MI has expanded its work with civic leaders in New York and across the country to promote free-market solutions to urban policy problems.

“I am looking forward to helping CSI-NJ grow in its role as a thought leader in the Garden State. Decades of seemingly haphazard policies have restricted the potential for economic growth in my home state, and consistent, free-market solutions can restore New Jersey’s economic vitality and desirability as a place to live, work, and raise a family,” said Mone.

“I thank Larry for committing his time to the Institute’s mission of public policy research and generating solutions, and I look forward to working with him in the years to come,” Cantrell concluded.