Court Opinion

ID: 9649676
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:05:51.814723+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:13.658692
License: Public Domain

Contokd, P. J. A. D.,
Temporarily Assigned (concurring and dissenting). With all deference to the differing views of the court majority, the writer entertains the firm conviction that in certain important respects, particularly the inadequacy of equalization of tax resources per pupil among the school districts, the 1975 education act, L. 1975, c. 212, N. J. S. A. 18A:7A-1 et seq., does not meet the requirements of the Education Clause of the Constitution as laid down in Robinson v. Cahill, 62 N. J. 473 (1973) (hereinafter designated as “the 1973 Robinson opinion or decision”) and as reaffirmed by a majority of the court as presently constituted, less than a year ago, in Robinson v. Cahill, 69 N. J. 133 (1975) (hereinafter designated as “the 1975 Robinson opinion or decision”). Aside from those aspects of the new statute, to which attention will presently be addressed, the writer shares with the majority the view that the act is otherwise facially valid and should so be declared at the present time without the necessity for remand for further factual hearings as demanded by plaintiffs and certain of the amici. However, one is compelled to say, with profound regret, that in giving blanket facial approval to the 1975 act in loto, the court is departing from the course of fiscal justice to the school children of this State on which it embarked in so enlightened a fashion in the 1973 Robinson decision and reinforced so resolutely in the recent 1975 Robinson case.
Introductorily, it is to be noted that in the 1975 Robinson opinion a majority of this court had no hesitancy in interpreting the 1973 decision of the court as identifying as “the principal cause of the constitutional deficiency” of fhe previous system of financing public education in this State “the substantial reliance * * * upon local taxation, entailing as it does ‘discordant correlations between the educational *477needs of the school districts and their respective tax bases’ ”, citing 62 N. J. at 520; 69 N. J. at 141. In essential character, the 1975 act now under review retains the vitiating dependency upon local taxation for the bulk of the cost of financing local education, with its continuing substantial discordance among the school districts in relation to the ratio of the tax resources of the districts to the number of pupils enrolled in the schools. While the equalization support provisions of the 1975 act, designed to ameliorate the discordancies mentioned, are an improvement over those of the previous law (hereinafter referred to as the Bateman or Bateman-Tanzman Act) (L. 1970, c. 234; N. J. S. A. 18A:o8-l et seq.), nevertheless, as will be shown, a substantial proportion of the State’s school districts, of the pupils enrolled therein and of the equalized assessed valuations represented thereby, remain unaffected by the support equalizing provisions of the 1975 act. In consequence, it must follow that the resulting absence of “equality of educational opportunity”,1 which Chief Justice Weintraub found fatal to the constitutionality of Bateman in the 1973 Robinson decision, still condemns the validity of the 1975 act, at least in part.
The second major aspect in which the 1975 act falls short of constitutional requirements, to be more fully developed later herein, is in respect of the provision of substantial “minimum aid” to all those districts which, because of their relatively high valuations-per-pupil base, do not qualify for equalization support aid. The specific holding of our 1975 Robinson decision was that “minimum aid” to districts in that category, as then provided for in Bateman, was invalid in the factual context of absence of full equalization support of all districts. Indeed, our order in that case was for the redistribution of all such minimum aid in accordance with the equalization support provisions of the Bateman *478Act. , 69 N. J. at 155. Thus, the 1975 act being flawed because of its failure to provide equalization of tax resources pier pupil among substantially all districts, the minimum aid provisions of the act must necessarily also fall.2
The 1975 act is, however, readily susceptible of constitutional correction within the general framework of the statute as drawn, as will presently be demonstrated. But an understanding of how the equalization provisions of the act fall short of the constitutional prescriptions of both the prior Robinson decisions of this court requires an outline and comparison of the general state aid schemes of Bateman and the 1975 act.
I
A synopsis of the state aid support plan of the Bateman Act is set forth in the 1973 Robinson opinion. 62 N. J. at 516-518. The basic structure of the plan consisted of three main features. It will be seen that the 1975 act, although differing markedly as to detail, continues in its general aid plan the three main features of the Bateman structure.
These features, as found in both the acts in question, consist of:
(a) an assessed valuation equalization plan designed, in effect to “guarantee” every school district the equivalent of a fixed amount of assessed valuations. The purpose is to give every district whose actual equalized3 assessed valuations *479are below the guarantee level the capacity to raise the same amount of funds for school expenses per pupil through the same school tax rate as every other such district;
(b) a “minimum” per pupil allowance to the districts separate and apart from equalization guarantees;
(c) “categorical” aids to defray the special expenses attendant upon the requirements of pupils especially difficult to educate in various respects. This category also includes the expense of transporting children to and from school and certain other miscellaneous types of aid.
It becomes especially pertinent to compare the equalization aspects of the state aid plans of Bateman and the 1975 act. Bateman was designed to build upon a previous “foundation plan” of $400 per pupil. Districts were to be rated for aid in a five-step scale ranging from <fbasic” to “comprehensive”, the former to be afforded guaranteed valuations at the rate of $30,000 per pupil and the latter $45,000. However no districts other than basic were ever created. A transitional scale of funding of the amount of equalization aid required by Bateman was set up for attainment over a period of years. The original funding was for 20% of the difference between the Bateman formula at the basic level and the previous foundation program. L, 1970, c. 234. Por the school year 1972-1973 the funding was for 40% of the difference. L. 1971, c. 335. Por the school year 1973-1974 the percentage was increased to 66-2/3%. L. 1972, c. 195. Por the school year 1974^1975 the Bateman Act was fully funded (at basic level). L. 1973, c. 310. However, for the school year 1975-1976, aid was appropriated only at the 1974-1975 level, and full Bateman funding accordingly sustained a shortage of about 18%.
Inherent in the Bateman aid plan is the proposition that districts having actual equalized valuations above the guar*480antee level fixed by the act as of any given time will enjoy lower education tax rates for the same amount of education expense per pupil than districts whose actual valuations are below the guarantee level. See the trial court opinion in this case, Robinson v. Cahill, 118 N. J. Super. 223, 262 (Law Div. 1972). As there stated, “the Bateman Act continues to employ a wealth-based formula.” Ibid. As of 1971 the guarantee level for state aid was $33,000 per pupil, ibid., but there were at that time 208 districts with actual equalized valuations below $35,000 per pupil (4 were below $10,000) and 370 above $35,000 (42 above $90,000). 118 N. J. Super, at 242. There was thus obviously inequality of educational opportunity as between pupils in the districts below (so-called “poor” districts) as compared with those above the guarantee level fixed by the Bateman Act (so-called “rich” districts). The studies made by the trial judge from the evidence before him satisfied him that:
“In most cases, rich districts spend more money per pupil than poor districts; rich districts spend more money on teachers’ salaries per pupil; rich districts have more teachers and professional staff per pupil, and rich districts manage this with tax rates that are lower than poor districts, despite ‘equalizing’ aid.” 118 N. J. Super. at 237-238; and see Appendix A attached to opinion of trial court, id. at 282-285.
On review of the trial court adjudication of unconstitutionality of the Bateman financing plan, this court in its 1973 Robinson opinion affirmed, resting its holding on the Education Clause (the trial court had also found denial of equal protection, state and federal). The court found “denial of equality of educational opportunity,” stating that the adjudication was placed on the same criterion as that employed by the trial court — “on the basis of discrepancies in dollar input per pupil.” 62 N. J. at 515. But it is apparent from what is noted above that the trial court found in the startling discrepancies in dollar input4 the symptoms, *481not the root causes of the constitutional deficiency. The quotation from the trial court opinion excerpted above indicates that it ear-marked the wide discordancies in tax ratable resources per pupil as the most probable cause of the extent of the discrepancies in expenditures so fatal to equality of educational opportunity. That this court was in agreement with that diagnosis is established by at least two significant statements in Chief Justice Weintraub’s 1973 Robinson opinion. The clearest was:
“Upon the record before us, it may be doubted that the thorough and efficient system of schools required by the 1875 amendment can realistically be met by reliance upon local taxation. The discordant correlations between the educational needs of the school districts and their respective tax bases suggest that any such effort would likely fail * * 62 N. J. at 520 (emphasis added).
The other pertinent excerpt is:
“We have outlined the formula of the 1970 Act [Bateman] to show that it is not demonstrably designed to guarantee that local effort plus the State aid will yield to all the pupils in the State that level of educational opportunity which the 1875 Amendment mandates. We see no basis for a finding that the 1970 Act, even if fully funded, would satisfy the constitutional obligation of the State.” 62 N. J. at 519 (emphasis added).
It should be as clear to anyone now as it was to a majority of this court in rendering the 1975 Robinson decision, as already noted above, that these passages, taken in the light of the record as a whole and the cogent opinion of the trial court, established the district discordancies in tax resources per pupil as “the principal cause of the constitutional deficiency” of the financing scheme under Bateman. 69 N. J. at 141.
It is, accordingly, appropriate to inspect the state aid plan of the 1975 act, in the light of the information of record, to ascertain whether the fundamental constitutional defect under the Bateman Act, noted above, has been eliminated by the legislation now before us.
*482II
Article III of the 1975 act deals with pecuniary state aid to the districts. It should be noted, preliminarily, that the State provides a significant amount of local aid outside the coverage of the act, and unaffected by it, in the form of support of the public schools’ pension system, entailing for the year 1976-1977 upwards of $200,000,000. This aid is provided on an actual cost, not an equalization, basis. The discussion of the fiscal provisions of the act hereinafter will not be inclusive of those figures except when specifically noted.
State aid for local school districts is provided in three general categories: “equalization support”, “categorical aid” and minimum support. Equalization support is calculated separately for “current expenses”, Section 18, and for “debt service and budgeted capital outlay”. Section 19.
The equalization support formulae are best understood by preliminary attention to certain definitions. “Guaranteed valuation per pupil” means, for the school year 1976-1977, 1.3 times the State average of equalized assessed valuations per pupil enrolled in the schools. Section 3. Thereafter the figure is 1.35. Ibid. “State support limit” means the 65th percentile net current expense budget per pupil for the prebudget year5 when all district figures are ranked from low to high. Ibid. A district’s “State support ratio” is determined by dividing the district equalized valuation per pupil by the guaranteed valuation per pupil and subtracting the quotient from 1.0000. Section 18.
The amount of a district’s current expense equalization support is derived by multiplying it's State support ratio by the smaller of (1) the net current expense budget and (2) the resident enrollment times the State support limit. *483Section 18. It can be seen that the general concept is to back each pupil in the schools in respect of district current expenses (but not in excess of the State-wide 65th percentile) with tax resources as represented by equalized valuations of at least 1.35 (after 1976-1977) times the State average of the districts. Those districts that have less valuations are in effect brought up to that level by aid; those that are above get no current expense aid or debt service and budgeted capital outlay aid but receive minimum support aid (see infra).
State support for debt service and budgeted capital outlay is in the amount of the district’s budgets for those items multiplied by the district’s State support ratio. If the product is less than zero the district gets no aid. Section 19.
Minimum support aid is in two categories: (a) “minimum aid” (a non-statutory term) of no less in current expense equalization support than 10% of the State support limit, Section 18(c); and (b) “save-harmless aid” (a non-statutory term) assuring every district of no less in state aid of all categories for 1976-1977 than it received during the school year 1974-1975, Section 55, and no less in 1977-1978 than one-half of the difference between what it received in 1974-1975 and what it would be entitled to under the 1975 act. Section 56.6
“Categorical” program aid consists of a schedule of “additional cost factors” in weighting pupils attending special education classes7 (Section 20). Categorical support is cal*484culated by multiplying the number of additional cost units by the State average net current expense budget. Section 20(d).
Generally understood as falling under “categorical support” but separately treated in the act is the defrayal of transportation costs. Section 34 and 35. Transportation aid is for the full cost of transporting handicapped children and for the full cost of transportation of any pupils residing beyond specified distances from school. Ibid.
Section 25 of the act regulates the rate at which districts may increase budgets for net current expense from year to year, subject to discretionary exemption by the Commissioner. Districts whose budgets are less than the State average may increase at a faster rate than districts at or above the average, the rate depending upon the degree below the average. Districts at or above the State average are all subject to the same maximum rate of increase.
In comparing the equalization aid provisions of Bateman with the 1975 act in order to determine whether the constitutional infirmity discussed above, adjudicated as to Bate-man, is also applicable to the 1975 act, the court is not *485remitted to a facial comparison of the two financing schemes. The court has the benefit of extended statistical studies supplied us at our request, and served upon all parties, by the Department of Education. For purposes of the discussion immediately ensuing it will be assumed that a district “equalized” as to valuations under the 1975 act receives equalization benefits equivalent to those of a district equalized under Bateman.8 It must be conceded, as the majority point out, that a substantially greater number of districts will, under the 1975 act, for the school year 1976-1977, fall within the umbrella of equalization for current expense and for debt service and budgeted capital outlay, than would be equalized under the comparable equalization provisions of Bateman were that act, fully funded, in operation for the same school year.
In the interests of a fair long-range assessment of the equalization effect of the 1975 act use will be made of the Department’s figures computed at the 1.35 guarantee ratio which will apply after the school year 1976-1977 (the ratio is only 1.3 for the year 1976-1977). Were that ratio in effect for 1976-1977, 368 of the 578 school districts, or 63.7%', would be equalized.9 The pupils in those districts *486•would be 73.5% of all pupils. The aggregate equalized valuations in those districts would be 56.5% of the total. These figures may be compared with the corresponding figures for districts equalized under Bateman for 1976-1977: 157 districts, or 27.2% of total; pupils in such districts being 38.5% of all pupils; and aggregate equalized valuations in such districts being 21.5% of total aggregate equalized valuations.
However, the conceded salutary improvement of the 1975 act over Bateman in the equalization effect just noted does not erase the remaining blunt, egregious facts that (a) under the 1975 act 210 of the districts possess an educational tax resource advantage over the other 368 districts, on a per-pupil basis; (b) that this superior educational opportunity accrues to 26.5% of the State’s pupils as against the other 73.5%; and (c) that the gross fiscal measure of that advantage is represented by the ratio of the 43.5% of aggregate equalized valuations in the favored districts as against the 56.5% of valuations in the districts discriminated against.
The extent of the educational inequality involved in the foregoing situation is exemplified by the fact that, while the 1975 act provides equalization to an equalized valuation level of $80,100 per pupil (see note 9, supra), the actual equalized valuations per pupil of the favored districts in many cases run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars per pupil.10
Surely, in the light of these patent facts, revealed by the record before us, it cannot be said that under the operation of the 1975 act there will no longer exist the “discordant *487correlations between the educational needs of the school districts and their respective tax bases” found in the 1973 Robinson decision, as noted above, to have presumptively invalidated the Bateman school financing plan because negating equality of educational opportunity.11
The presumptive tax rate advantage accruing under the local property tax system and Bateman to districts having high equalized valuations per pupil, found as a fact by the trial court, as noted above, is shown by Education Department exhibits submitted to us to be equally applicable to the 1975 act in projection for the school year 1976-1977.
Illustrative is Exhibit 6 of the Department’s evidential exhibits in the case, undertaking to compare prospective local current (educational) expense tax rates, as between different hypothetical school aid plans, in application for the school year 1976-1977. That exhibit, slightly edited for added clarity, is appended to this opinion. It sets forth the statistics for 50 randomly selected districts at evenly spaced percentiles of the rankings of all the districts in respect of equalized values per pupil (“E. Y. per pupil”), ranging from Camden, at the lower end with an E. Y. of $20,401, to Stone Harbor, with an E. Y. of $1,073,027.
Eor present purposes, the attention of the reader is directed to columns (2) and (3) of Exhibit 6 which compare the prospective current expense effective tax rates under the *4881975 act and under the Bateman Act (there designated as “Bateman-Tanzman”). It will be seen that in relation to both the 1975 act and Bateman tax rates remain relatively stable for all the districts whose equalized valuations fall under the guarantee level (under the 1975 act) of $86,000 per pupil. As the districts, beginning with No. 71 (Nutley), approach and rise above that level, tax rates begin to go down, and drop precipitately with the 20-25% of districts at the upper end of the equalized valuations scale.
Of particular relevance to the differences between the writer and the majority concerning the constitutional viability of the 1975 act in relation to the extent of equalization of the districts, it is pointed out that the exhibit shows that there is rough comparability between the 1975 act and Bateman as to the point where differences in equalized valuations of the districts begin to manifest themselves in significant reductions in effective school tax rates. This of course strongly negates the implication of the majority opinion that the 1975 act improves district equalization, as compared with Bateman, to an extent justifying the court in regarding the condemnation in our prior decisions of Bate-man in this respect as now overcome.
The same lesson is to be d^awn from the rationale of our 1975 Robinson decision, directing the order of redistribution, written by the Chief Justice and subscribed to by five members of this court, 69 N. J. at 149-151, 155, and a comparison of the effect of that redistribution with the operation of the 1975 act. The sum and substance of the 1975 court order was to effectuate an interim step toward constitutional compliance in a state aid system which had been adjudicated constitutionally defective. What we did was to take certain state aid moneys not related to equalization of district tax resources per pupil and order them redistributed in accordance with the equalization formula of the Bateman Act. In doing so we said that that course would tend “to subserve the goal of equality of educational opportunity.” 69 N. J. at 149. We accepted as sound in *489principle the contention there addressed to us by the Governor that the six categories of state aid (non-equalizing) which he sought to have redistributed “are not compatible with the Robinson criterion of equality of educational resources for the pupils, whereas the incentive formula is.” Ibid.
We thus could not have more clearly identified the objective of equalization of district tax resources per pupil with the transcendental objective of the Education Clause specified in the 1973 Robinson decision — “an equal educational opportunity for children.”12
We were, however, careful to point out in the 1975 Robinson decision that the order there directed was not conceived of as a final and perfect implementation of the Education Clause but as an “essential and minimal interim step in the enforcement of the Education Clause,” 69 N. J. at 154; as a “positive step toward the end result of full constitutional compliance,” 69 N. J. at 151 (emphasis added).
However, examination of the statistical effect of the 1975 court order and comparison thereof with the operation of the 1975 act shows that the 1975 act does not constitute a significantly greater advance in the direction of full equalization of districts than the court order, even crediting the 1975 act with a 1.35 guaranteed valuation ratio (applicable only after 1976-1977). Under the court order the percentage of equalized districts is 59.6, compared with 63.7% for the 1975 act; the respective percentages for pupils in such districts are 72.2% as against 73.5%; and the percentages of aggregate equalized valuations in such districts are 55% as against 56.5%. The comparison thus reveals essential parity in equalization as between the court order and the 1975 act.
Equalizing aid for current expenses in 1976-1977 under the 1975 act is, at a total of $568,093,418, only minimally *490above the comparable figure of $551,080,454 under the court order.
The amici who support the plaintiffs in this case have submitted tables of statistics demonstrating that the urban districts, characteristically low in ratables per pupil and characteristically high in non-school burden on the tax base as well as in number of children requiring special educational effort, fare substantially better under the court order than under the 1975 act. While, as shall be more fully developed later herein, the equalizing effect of the 1975 act in a constitutional sense cannot be judged exclusively by a comparison of effects on urban vis a vis non-urban districts, there is broad unanimity of opinion that the urban districts, for the reasons given, are peculiarly in need of equalizing state aid to education.
In summation of the present discussion, it is difficult if not impossible to reconcile the thesis that the court order of 1975 was only a step in the direction of achievement of full equalization of educational opportunity with the position of the defendants and the majority that the enactment of the 1975 act has achieved the requisite constitutional level in that regard.
Ill
The majority have not satisfactorily dealt with the constitutional deficiency of the 1975 act discussed above. After noting the fact that more districts achieve equalization under the 1975 act than under Bateman (note 4, p. 465), the opinion is content to say, peremptorily, that comparison of the state aid effects of the 1975 act and Bateman “certainly cannot be given significant weight.” (p. 465). This conclusion is rested on the Commissioner’s power under the 1975 act to compel the districts to raise their budgets if inadequate. However, conceding that the Commissioner’s statutory power to direct “budgetary changes” in a deficient district includes the power to direct an increase in any such *491budget, the exercise of such a power against a district of relatively low equalized valuations per pupil — a district whose pupils are already unconstitutionally discriminated against under the criteria of the 1973 and 1975 Robinson decisions — would simply be to exacerbate the existing denial of equality of educational opportunity to the pupils in such districts. It would place added strain on tax rates already inflated by inadequate bases of ratables per enrolled pupil.
The majority note (at p. 465) that in our 1973 Robinson decision it was pointed out that if a district were unable to raise the funds to provide the requisite educational opportunity for its pupils, “the State must itself meet its continuing obligation.” 62 N. J. at 513. But the majority concede that the 1975 act contains no provision for meeting this contingency and exhort the Legislature to address the problem. The majority do not regard the matter as critical to the facial constitutionality of the act, saying that the contingency of local fiscal inadequacy “may never occur.” With all due respect to the majority, the latter observation ignores the fact established in the record before us that inadequacies have abounded in our educational system in many parts of the State, see 118 N. J. Super, at 247, 249-252. It also ignores the adjudication in our prior decisions in this case that (a) inequality of educational opportunity is per se a denial of the guarantee of the Education Clause; and (b) discordancies in tax resources among the districts on a per pupil basis is presumptively a denial of equality of educational opportunity in the districts disadvantaged by such discordancies. It has been shown above that these pernicious conditions continue under the 1975 act.
One can agree with the majority that the matter of achieving educational adequacy in our public schools has not heretofore been addressed by the Legislature in the comprehensive manner reflected by the 1975 act. It is salutary that this has now been done. But the matter of achievement of substantive excellence in the educational process was not the heart of the grievance which led to the filing of this action *492in the first instance. That consisted of the claim that the Education 'Clause implied either equality of treatment among taxpayers or “equality among the pupils of the State and that such equality is not achieved and cannot be achieved by a system of taxation which depends upon the existing local tax base.” 63 N. J. at 509-510.
Basically, the latter contention was upheld by this court in the 1973 Robinson ease. As the majority recognize, we approached the issue before us in the 1973 Robinson case as involving “the constitutionality of statutes providing for the financing of elementary and secondary schools,” 63 N. J. 480 (emphasis added), not the constitutionality of different methods of imparting education or of contending theories as to the merits of comparative educational goals or processes, unrelated to the matter of financing.
The issue before the court ever since this litigation began always has been, and remains, the constitutionality of the system, of fiscal treatment by the State of the districts in respect of education and the presumptive effect thereof upon the educational opportunities of pupils. The mere enactment of the 1975 act did not draw a curtain of irrelevance over the preexisting system of financing education or obliterate the relationship of that system to that enacted in 1975. Nor did it, or any idealistic educational aspirations expressed therein, nullify the prior holdings of this court that there is a denial of equality of educational opportunity where one district can draw on substantially greater tax resources per pupil to support education than another district.
And so the fundamental issue before us has not, as one might gather from the majority opinion, been transmuted into the more remote future question of whether particular districts will on particular future occasions be shown to be inadequately financed for the administration of their educational function. The issue remains whether the systemic constitutional deficiencies of the Bateman plan as an entirety, twice adjudicated by this court, have been eliminated in the *4931975 act. The very purpose of the court’s retention of jurisdiction over the matter to the present time has been to make certain that any adopted statute measured up to the- constitutional criteria we set in our prior decisions. In that sense the 1975 act does not start off with the ordinary presumption of constitutionality. The burden lies with its proponents. It has not been met. It is clear that the deficiency inherent in the substantial continuance among the districts of unremedied discordancies in tax resources per pupil is, unless corrected, fatal to the validity of the 1975 act.
To hold this act wholly valid in the face of the facts of record is to return to the disastrous era of legislative laissezfaire in school financing which led to the 1973 Robinson decision of this court.
IV
The other patent constitutional defect of the 1975 act is the continuance of the feature of “minimum” support to districts whose equalized valuations are so high as not to qualify for the full amount of current expense equalization aid specified by the act. A comparable but less invidious minimum aid feature of the Bateman Act was expressly held unconstitutional in our 1975 Robinson decision and an order entered that any such aid appropriated for the year 1976-1977 should be redistributed in accordance with the incentive equalization formula of the Bateman Act. 69 N. J. 133, 149, 155. The minimum aid provisions of Bateman were less invidious than those of the 1975 act because the former went on a uniform per pupil basis to all the districts, including those who qualified for equalization aid, while the latter call for distribution only to those who do not qualify for full equalization aid.
Since the basis for our holding in the 1975 decision was that minimum aid to all districts exacerbated the inequality produced by insufficient equalization of the districts as to ratables, 69 N. J. at 149, and it has been demonstrated above *494that there is insufficient equalization of districts under the 1975 act, there is no choice but to find the minimum aid provisions of the 1975 act to be invalid. The -majority opinion defends the minimum aid provisions of the 1975 act on the thesis that the act takes “positive steps to eliminate gross disparities in per pupil expenditures and tax resources.” (p. 467). The contrary evaluation fully explicated above is confidently rested on the record of this case. The majority also point out (at note 4 on page 465) that minimum aid under the act (after 1976-1977) will be $48 million as compared with the $290 million of such aid under the Bateman Act. However, only $163,885,000 of the latter sum would have gone to districts above the Bateman equalization guarantee level, the balance going, as noted above, to districts below that level and thus also receiving equalization support aid.
In any event, the principle of the invalidity of aid to “rich” districts when a substantial number of “poor” districts are underfinanced, declared in the 1975 Robinson case, must condemn the minimum aid provision of the 1975 act.
V
The last aspect of the 1975 act deemed constitutionally vulnerable is Section 25. As noted earlier herein, that section, subject to discretionary exemption by the Commissioner, imposes totally arbitrary restrictions on the rate by which districts may increase budgets for net current expense from year to year. The formula fixed by the act is such that a substantial number of districts would be prevented from increasing their budgets at a greater rate than is compelled by normal average inflation, without substantive improvement of educational performance. If most districts, as is highly probable, increase their budgets annually at the maximum rate permissible, the disparities in expenditure levels between districts spending at the statewide average rate and those spending at substantially higher rates will never be reduced. This result is obviously at war with the object of remedying the major flaw found by our court in the 1973 Robinson *495decision in the previous financing system — the gross disparities in expenditure levels as between the districts.
Unless the Commissioner is to exercise his power of exemption on a practically wholesale basis, the operation of Section 25 plainly conflicts with the purported object of the act to ameliorate the principal evil this court found inherent in the Bateman plan. Section 25 should be exscinded from the act as unconstitutional.
VI
It has been indicated earlier herein that the 1975 act is regarded as constitutionally correctible, without disturbing its general plan and scheme. Aside from eliminating minimum support aid and exscinding Section 25, both of which steps are readily feasible, the key to validation of the act lies in increasing the guaranteed valuation per pupil for current expense equalization support (and debt service and budgeted capital outlay) from the statutory ratio (after 1976-1977) of 1.35 times the State average valuation per pupil to a figure more, realistically consonant with the constitutional objective of substantial elimination of discordancies in equalized valuations per pupil above the fixed guarantee level. The object would be to meet in principle the requirements in this regard of both the 1973 and 1975 Robinson decisions but yet not exact from the State a financial burden totally out of proportion with reasonable standards as to what it can be expected to raise by taxation.
Several considerations conduce to the view that increasing the guaranteed valuation ratio from 1.3 to 2.0 would satisfy the constitutional requirement of equality of educational opportunity to a substantial degree and yet not overbear the practicalities of governmental capacity in this era of fiscal strain.
The ratio of 2.0 times the State average was that advanced by Governor Byrne in 1974 as optimal for this purpose and was contained in an early version of the bill13 which was ul*496timately enacted as the 1975 act. It is also strongly supported by amid N. J. Education Association and U. J. Association of School Boards (although they have not claimed it to be a constitutional requisite).
If twice the State average had been the adopted ratio under the 1975 act, 521 districts of the 578 in the State, encompassing 98.17% of all the enrolled pupils in the State, would have been covered by the umbrella of equalization of tax resources per pupil in 1976-1977. To require the coverage to include all districts would be impracticable since the highest districts in terms of equalized valuations per pupil represent extremely atypical situations, and the cost thereof to the State would be grossly excessive.14
The 1976-1977 cost of equalizing districts at the level of guaranteed valuations of twice the State average would have resulted in a total contribution of state aid in all categories of $1,552,000,000, as against $1,131,000,000 for the statutory level of 1.3 and $1,156,000,000 for the level of 1.35 (applicable after 1976-1977).15 It would raise the State share of the cost of education to about 52%.16
*497Assuming that the legislative medium of choice to accomplish equalization as between districts would be the general scheme of the 1975 act, which was found valid in all other respects (save minimum support aid and Section 25, discussed above), a ratio of twice the State average would be concluded to be a reasonable accommodation of the practicalities and the constitutional objective and thus a valid and constitutional solution to the problem of achieving equality of educational opportunity from the fiscal viewpoint.17 It would accomplish substantially full statewide equalization of tax resources per pupil, within the practical limitations presented by the atypieally high districts referred to above and the State’s potential resources. The Legislature in its wisdom may of course choose a higher ratio than twice the State average, or, indeed, select any other mechanism which in substance effects an adjustment of supporting tax resources per pupil to the equivalent in equalization of what the 1975 act would produce at the twice-the-State-average basis.
It should be pointed out that full equalization is not regarded as a panacea for accomplishment of a thorough and efficient statewide system of education. An effective implementation of Article II of the 1975 act is essential toward that end. But it may take decades for that to come to pass. In the meantime the districts must as a constitutional imperative be relieved of the brunt of the inequalities in local fund-raising capacity which this court has determined adversely affect equality of educational opportunity, and thus, *498by our equation in tbe 1973 Robinson opinion, tbe thoroughness and efficiency of the system as a whole.
An important consideration related to the practicalities of government obtrudes itself, however, at the notion of a State support plan which in 1976-1977 would cost the State about $400,000,000 above what is required fully to fund the 1975 act. However, the demands of constitutional disposition can be accommodated to governmental exigencies, whether sociological, see Brown v. Board of Ed. of Topeka, 349 U. S. 294, 301, 75 S. Ct. 753, 99 L. Ed. 1083 (1955) (directing the enforcement of .school desegregation "with all deliberate speed”), or economic, as here. The fiscal difficulties of government in these times, and particularly of this State, call for such accommodation here.
Consequently, it is proposed that if the Legislature responded to these views by acceptance of the two-times-average valuation suggested as minimal, the phasing in of the change in ratio from 1.3 to 2.0 could be permitted to take place in the following manner. First, since the minimum aid provision of the act is invalid, the $54,000,000 of minimum support provided for under full funding of the act in 1976-1977 would be required to be redeployed in that year to raise the guarantee level as far as those funds would permit. The difference in the guarantee level between 2.0 and the raised level just mentioned could be made up over a period of not more than five school years following the school year 1976-1977, in equal annual stages to the nearest multiple of 0.05, reaching 2.0 no later than the fifth year. The formula selected would be required to be stated in an amendment of the 1975 act.18
*499YII
Aside from the matters discussed above, accord is reached with the majority as to the absence of any other material issue of fact relevant to constitutionality which would justify the remand and hearing sought by some of the parties and amici, and the 1975 act is found facially constitutional in all such other argued respects. The additional contentions warrant some discussion.
Preliminarily, it is noted that it is fully four years since the Law Division held the Bateman Act violative of the equal protection provisos of the state and federal constitutions and of the Education Clause of the State Constitution. It is almost three years since we affirmed that holding on the basis of the Education Clause in the 1973 Robinson decision. A great amount of work, study, consultation and money has *500been invested by the other branches of government in an effort to achieve compliance with the court’s adjudication.
The thorough and efficient education of almost one and a half million school children and their successors in the decades ahead lies in the balance. The public educational establishment of State and local government has been in a state of tension and uncertainty from year to year during the period of this litigation over how much money it could count on for performing its vital function. Planning has periodically been disorganized and frustrated. Whereas the heretofore statutory scheme has called for the State Commissioner of Education to advise the districts by October 1 of the prebudget year as to how much state aid they could count on, that assurance has not been possible the past two years at least, partly because of uncertainty as to how the Legislature would respond to our prior decisions in the litigation, or indeed, to the fiscal requirements of the 1975 act itself. There can hardly be any doubt that as a result the ongoing process of public education in this State has suffered and is presently suffering.
All of the foregoing conduces to the conclusion that this court should now, as a matter of sound public policy, if reasonably possible on the record before us and on facts of which we can take judicial notice, determine the extent to which the 1975 act does or does not meet constitutional requisites, definitively indicate how it can be repaired legislatively to the extent that it does not, and apply firm and legally acceptable remedies to assure, if at all possible, an early end to this litigation and the implementation of an adequate and constitutional system of public education beginning with the school year 1976-1977 (commencing July 1, 1976). It is in that spirit that the court has approached and attempted to resolve the several issues posed by the motions, briefs and oral argument.
The matter of the asserted need for a further record needs to be approached separately in respect of the attack on goals and standards as distinguished from that on fund*501ing. The former aspect is simpler of resolution. The gravamen of the assault on the statutory goals is (a) that the educational system purportedly constructed by the 1975 act is not complete until administrative regulations are adopted and (b) that such preliminary drafts of proposed regulations as were extant when the briefs were filed were deficient in not establishing or providing for the establishment of “uniform pupil performance standards” in basic skill areas claimed to be necessary for effective citizenship and competition in the labor market, see the 1973 Robinson decision, 62 N. J. at 515, and of an evaluation system for pupil performance in relation thereto.
All that is before us now is the new statute. The statute defines goals, standards and objectives. No statute other than Bateman was under review in the 1975 Robinson case and therefore what we said there about “inchoate and hortatory regulations” as to administrative goals then in preparation is not now relevant. 69 N. J. at 145. There is no hesitation in pronouncing the educational goals, standards and guidelines in Article II of the 1975 act facially valid and not themselves susceptible of attack on any hypothetical set of facts which might he developed on a new record. This much is conceded by amici, Education Committee NAACP (Newark) and ACLU of New Jersey, who otherwise generally support the attack upon the act. The goals, standards and guidelines stated in the act are obviously comprehensive, pertinent to the objective of achieving a thorough and efficient system of education and susceptible of administrative implementation toward that end. There is no sound reason why we should not so adjudicate now. See Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases, 419 U. S. 102, 144, 95 S. Ct. 335, 42 L. Ed. 2d 320 (1974). It will of course be open to anyone to attempt to demonstrate in the future that the system, as applied in operation, or the regulations,19 are constitu*502tionally defective, see id., 69 N. J. at 15A-155, but that will be a different litigation from this. There is therefore no present occasion to consider the constitutionality of the State Board regulations as to goals, methods and guidelines.
The question as to whether a factual record beyond what is, and since the 1973 Robinson decision has been, before us, is necessary or appropriate to demonstrate that the funding and fiscal features of the legislation meet or do not meet the Education Clause can best be explored in the context of a consideration of the merits of the opposing arguments with respect to the constitutional attack on those aspects of the law.
A.
One main line of constitutional criticism of the fiscal aspects of the statute advanced before us is that there is nothing in the act to satisfy the admonition of the 1973 Robinson decision that in order to meet the Education Clause the State must not only “define * * * the educational obligation” but “compel the local school districts to raise the moneys necessary” to achieve any such stated standard, 62 N. J. at 519 (emphasis in original), unless the State itself acts in the matter. Id. at 513. If, arguendo, the contention goes, the standards have been adequately defined by the act, there is nothing in the act to assure that the districts can or will be able to raise the moneys needed; if the districts cannot raise the money there is nothing in the act to require the State to raise the funds for the district; ergo, the act defaults on the Education Clause, even as did Bateman. The premises stated, are, it is believed, correct. It has expressly been so noted earlier in this opinion. But the conclusion of unconstitutionality on that ground does not necessarily follow.
The 1973 Robinson decision is misread if it is inferred therefrom that the gist of the unconstitutionality found by the court was, alone, the absence of a mechanism to deploy *503sufficient moneys in particular districts to remedy the failure to achieve a legislatively fixed prescription for a thorough and efficient education. As has been developed at length above, what the Constitution demands and the court found lacking in the 1973 Robinson decision is a statewide system of financing a thorough and efficient education so as to afford equality of educational opportunity to all children, not merely a rescue apparatus to salvage particular isolated districts found deficient where the statewide system is equitably financed. The court’s comments as to the need for the State to identify the educational opportunity it would provide must be read in the context of the express adjudications noted hereinabove that the prime benchmark of the failure and unconstitutionality of the system was the wide ranging “discrepancies in dollar input per pupil”, 62 N. J. at 515, see also 118 N. J. Super, at 235-246, and that the principal cause of those discrepancies was the discordant correlations between the educational needs of the districts and their respective tax bases. 62 N. J. at 520.
Plaintiffs and amici argue that the heart of the invalidity of Bateman, and now also of the 1975 act, is the discrepancy in dollar input per district, and they desire an opportunity on a remand to demonstrate this thesis as to the 1975 act as applied. Our dissenting colleague, Justice Pashman, agrees with them.
Erom what has been said above it will be apparent that that thesis is not agreed with. The facts as to discrepancies in dollar inputs are amply set forth in the exhibits before us. A remand is not needed to establish the facts, which are conceded. It has been shown above that the wide disparities in dollar expenditure are symptoms, but not the causes, of the constitutional deficiency — that the most basic cause of the existing wide disparities in expenditure levels is the discordancies in taxable wealth per pupil. See discussion, supra.
In the 1973 Robinson decision we observed that some variables in district expenditures were legitimately expectable *504because of variations in area costs, special costs of educating particular kinds of pupils and the right of districts to “go further” in advancing the education of their children provided the State’s mandated responsibility for all other districts was not diluted. 62 N. J. at 520.
What concerned us in the 1973 Robinson ease was the startling extent of the disparities in expenditure, ranging in 1971 from 14 districts with current expense per pupil of below $700 to 16 districts with over $1500. 118 N. J. Super. at '242. As noted above, this, to us, constituted prima facie evidence of denial of equality of opportunity to the pupils in the districts at the lower end. And the strong correlation, by and large, of low-spending with low-wealth districts corroborated in our minds the inculpation of discordancies in per-pupil tax wealth as a principal cause of the constitutional deficiency.
If equalization of tax resources per pupil were effected to the extent indicated above as minimally obligatory, one could expect that over the long run, with the aid of effective and thoroughgoing State enforcement of the goals, standards and objectives set forth in Article II of the 1975 act, the hitherto extreme variations in district expenditures would be substantially reduced and the lowest spending districts would be achieving a satisfactory performance. If this did not occur, and demonstrable shortcomings in the system still persisted notwithstanding exhaustion of administrative remedies, pointing to absence of thoroughness and efficiency in the educational process, the courts would remain accessible for constitutional relief.
But one can readily agree with plaintiffs that there is no realistic promise of reduction of the existing excessive disparities in pupil expenditure among the districts in the paper remedies of the 1975 act if more substantial equalization of tax resources per pupil — or some equivalent automatic remedy — is not put into effect. The necessity for the latter *505is absolutely basic to any scheme purporting to hold the promise of equality of educational opportunity.
Attention is addressed to the other substantive constitutional challenges mounted by plaintiffs and supporting amici. The gist of their position is that the principal sufferers from the present unconstitutional system are the school children in the heavily urban districts, and they assert that their plight is not significantly ameliorated by the 1975 act. They note that the substantial “weighting” of children from disadvantaged homes provided for in the Bateman equalization formula, see 62 N. J. at 517, is eliminated in the 1975 act. They offer statistical analyses in graph form purporting to demonstrate that the invidious correlation of high district wealth (equalized valuations per pupil) to high educational expenditures, and vice versa, was more pronounced under Bateman than under the May 1975 court order. They challenge the use of the prebudget year as the base for estimating State current expense aid and also the limitation to the 65th percentile under the “State support limit”. Complaint is also registered as to the failure of the 1975 act to compensate for “municipal overburden”, see 69 N. J. at 150-151. The retention of expensive categorical aid programs on a per pupil cost basis rather than on an equalization basis is assailed as furthering inequity to the low-wealth districts. Moreover, plaintiffs attack Section 25 of the act on the ground it creates unwarranted barriers against low-spending districts attempting to reduce the very disparities in expenditures vis a vis high spending districts which this court, as noted above, saw as the main benchmark of the unconstitutionality of Bateman. The writer has hereinabove expressed his agreement with the contention that Section 25 is invalid. Finally, plaintiffs make the assertion, which has also been found above to be well-founded, that the minimum support provisions of the 1975 act are invalid.
*506B.
The comparisons tendered by plaintiffs and amici between the effect of the May 1975 court order and the 1975 act in relation to distributions to districts are not determinative in constitutional effect. Note was taken above of the fact that such comparisons tended to refute the position of defendants that the 1975 act sufficiently effected equalization of valuations as among the districts. However, the 00111!; order was not the court’s concept of an absolute constitutional standard or even of a necessarily well-considered state-aid plan. The incidence among the districts of the distribution which would have resulted therefrom was simply the fortuitous outcome of an interim device designed by the court only to eliminate the obviously objectionable minimum support feature and to redeploy those funds in the constitutional direction of equalization of supporting resources per pupil. The more pertinent comparisons for present purposes are between the 1975 act and Bateman, whose invalidity defendants assert has been cured by the new statute.
C.
No compelling constitutional implications are perceived in the tendered comparisons of treatment of urban vis a vis non-urban districts under the former and new legislative plans. Equality of educational opportunity is guaranteed under the Education Clause for children in all manner of districts. What is of significance in that regard is how low-expenditure and low-valuations-per-pupil districts vis a vis high ones fare under the respective plans. There are low and high districts in both respects in non-urban as well as urban districts.
A more appealing point is made when plaintiffs complain about the failure of the 1975 act to take municipal overburden into account in formulating the equalization plan. Both in the 1973 Robinson decision, 62 N. J. at 499, 519, and *507the 1975 Robinson decision, 69 N. J. at 150-151, we recognize the interrelationship between school needs and non-school needs as dependent on the same local tax base, and it is obvious that an overload of non-school burdens (welfare, police and fire protection, health and sanitation and the like) in some urban districts as compared to suburban or rural districts may seriously disadvantage the former in defraying the cost of education. But here again, the problem is not monochromatic. We pointed out in the 1975 Robinson decision that some municipalities with high valuations per pupil also have high non-school burdens.' 69 N. J. at 150-151. Plaintiffs and supporting amici have advanced no specific, feasible proposals as to how a state school-aid formula could fairly and uniformly reflect municipal overburden as such; nor do they suggest how a remand hearing would be productive in that regard. We gave thought to the matter for interim remedy purposes in the 1975 Robinson case but abandoned the effort as unproductive. 69 N. J. at 151.
In any event, it is concluded that the problem posed is legislative, not constitutional. Tinkering with the mechanism for the support of local government by local taxation in the name of fostering equality of educational opportunity would raise problems cognate to the question considered in the 1973 Robinson case as to whether the system of financing education in this State violates equal protection in the state constitutional sense. After pointing out that a judicial effort in that direction would entail challenging the whole historic scheme in this State of local government as expected to defray all the normal burdens of such government, albeit with unequal tax bases, we rejected the approach, adverting to the “convulsive implications if home rule is vulnerable” on such grounds. 62 N. J. at 501.
The home rule system and its attendant inherent variables between local tax bases and local governmental needs of all kinds was well established in this State when the Educational Clause first became a part of our 'Constitution in 1875. *508Those variables had become, even more pronounced, by the time the Education Clause was readopted intact as part of the Constitution of 1947. It would therefore be sheer judicial constitution-making for the court now to embrace the proposition that a system of thorough and efficient education as envisaged by the framers must adjust the capacity of school districts to finance-education in terms of the respective abilities or disabilities of the corresponding municipalities to finance their non-educational burdens. Those problems, pressing as they surely are, exist entirely independently of the Education Clause, and are for the attention of' the Legislature, not the courts.
The 1975 act does not fail because not áttuned to municipal overburden. One can so conclude as a matter of law, whatever facts plaintiffs might be able to establish on a remand.
D.
Also germane to the plaintiffs’ “urban” approach is their assault on the elimination of the weighted pupils factors as provided for in Bateman20 and the substitution therefor in the 1975 act of the additional cost factors for pupils in special education classes. Again, the appropriate response is that the matter is one purely of policy for the Legislature, and not one of constitutional dimension.
E.
Another substantial challenge is raised by plaintiffs with respect to the categorical aid program of the 1975 act, with aid for transportation costs included under that head. Plaintiffs cogently argue that since one of the prime thrusts of the 1973 Robinson decision is the insufficiency of equalization of *509tax resources per enrolled pupil, categorical aid should fall as it is specific rather than equalizing. The position asserted is that it is subject to the same condemnation we visited upon minimum support aid under Bateman in the 1975 Robinson decision.
The argument has a certain plausibility. All of the items under categorical aid may be said broadly to subserve the function of education. If absence of equalization of state aid among districts, or inadequate equalization, is a presumptive hallmark of lack of a thorough and efficient system, why should not the principle of equalization apply to the categorical aid programs as well as to current expenses of to debt service and capital outlay?
Answers to the query posed can be bottomed on two grounds: (a) the logic of the equalization argument can be overextended; (b) there are colorable reasons, well within legislative policy judgment, for structuring categorical aid along specific rather than equalizing grounds.
Pirst, the view that absence of full equalization of tax resources per pupil is the sole and absolute criterion of whether the demands of the Education Clause are met is not that here espoused. Such absence is regarded as one presumptive albeit major, contributor to such default. In that light, it is necessary to analyze the rationale of making some kinds of aid specific rather than equalizing before one can determine whether the legislative objective warrants stamping the programs as effectively denying equality of educational opportunity and therefore meriting judicial condemnation.
A glance at the special class weightings set forth in Section 20 (see note 7, supra) suffices to demonstrate that these all involve abnormal pupils, having in one way or another special handicaps in respect of educability and entailing special attendant expense. No conclusive reason is seen why the legislative policy judgment to make specific compensation to the district on account of such extraordinary special-expense factors, as a logical alternative to the “weighted pupil” concept *510of Bateman, should be deemed fatal to basic equality of educational opportunity.
The case is even stronger for state aid for transportation expense. This is not an “educational” expense in any direct sense. Cf. West Morris Reg. Bd. of Ed., et al. v. Sills, et al., 58 N. J. 464, 474 (1971). Without aid, districts are peculiarly burdened or relieved in this regard by the fortuitous circumstance of the distance from school to home of enrolled pupils. Urban districts have substantially less such expense per pupil than rural districts. It seems entirely reasonable for the Legislature to decide to defray such specific costs as and where they accrue. No impingement upon the Education Clause is discerned. See West Morris Reg. Bd. of Ed., et al. v. Sills, et al., supra.
P.
As noted above, plaintiffs take exception to the “State support limit” at the 65th percentile net current expense budget per pupil statewide, as well as to- the use of the prebudget year for this purpose. The point made is simply stated. Districts require funding for the current budget year. Prebudget years are, in these times, about 8% to 10% below current budget years. Moreover, if a district’s actual needs run above the State 65th percentile of all districts, aid should be geared to the subject district’s needs, not limited to the arbitrary 65th percentile.
Although it has been stated that these are relevant considerations in determining whether the act provides adequate equalization of valuations, nevertheless, in the context of an assumption that there will be an adjustment of the equalization base to an acceptable level, these matters are regarded as legislative policy determinations, legitimately influenced to some extent by administrative considerations. As to use of the prebudget year, the actual current expense budget for that year is known when current budget making is going on. The current budget is then only in a formative and un*511certain state. Administrative convenience is thus served by using the prebudget year.
As to the 65th percentile, this represents a policy judgment as to what a fairly representative district should spend, liberally raised from the median of all districts — a measure the Legislature could have adopted — to one somewhat above that. Given adequate equalization in other aspects of the formula (see supra), no constitutional infirmity is perceived in the use of the 65th percentile in and of itself.
VIII
The matter of final concern is that of remedies. No point is seen in extended discussion of this subject in light of the fact that the views expressed above as to the merits of the controversy are not in all respects those of a majority of the court. As a practical matter, one’s approach to the matter of remedies must be geared to today’s decision of the court that the 1975 act is in all respects valid and that the order of the court of May 23, 1975 is set aside. In that light, and accepting the majority affirmation that the court’s declaration of validity of the 1975 act assumes full funding of the act for the school year 1976-1977, the writer expresses his complete joinder in the court’s determination that the act must be fully funded. Accordingly, he joins in Part IV of the majority opinion wherein the court retains jurisdiction of the cause for the purpose of applying sanctions to enforce full funding of the 1975 act for the school year 1976-1977.

*512

 62 N. J. at 513, 516, 520.

Invalidity also attaches to certain “save-harmless” aid provisions of the 1975 act to- which further reference will he had later herein. These were also condemned by the 1975 Robinson decision. 69 N. J. at 155.

The term “equalized” as used herein in the phrase “equalized assessed valuations” is to be distinguished from the general concept of equalizing districts in their power to support educational expense. The former refers to the statistic resulting from the annual process of determining the true value of all assessed ratables throughout the districts. This is done annually by the Director of the State Division of Taxation, and the resulting “equalized valúa*479tions” have been used for distribution of state aid to education under all state aid plans in effect since 1956. See Tp. of Willingboro v. Burlington Cty. Bd. Tax., 62 N. J. 203, 209 (1973).

Ranging by district from below $700 per pupil annually to over $1500. See 118 A. J. Super, at 242.

All references hereinafter to “net current expense budget” or “current expense budget” shall be taken to refer to the pre-budget year.

The save-harmless moneys are relatively small, and as the provisions phase out after 1977-1978 may be regarded as de minimis for constitutional purposes.

The weightings for the various special classes are as follows (Section 20) :

Special Education Classes Additional Cost Factors

Educable 0.53
Trainable 0.95
Orthopedically handicapped 1.27
*484Neurologically impaired 1.06
Perceptually impaired 0.85
Visually handicapped 1.91
Auditorially handicapped 1.38
Communication handicapped 1.06
Emotionally disturbed 1.27
Socially maladjusted 0.95
Chronically ill 0.85
Multiply handicapped 1.27
Otlier Glasses and Services Approved private school tuition 1.0 plus the additional cost factor of the handicap
Supplementary and speech instruction 0.09 based on the number of ■pupils actually receiving such instruction in the prior school year
Bilingual education 0.16
State compensatory education 0.11
Approved local vocational education 0.53

Although, as will presently be shown, equalization under the 1975 act is qualified by certain factors to be noted.

The term “equalized” is here used in the sense of the intent of the act to give every district under a fixed limit of guaranteed valuations the same school tax rate for the same school expenditure per pupil. That limit would be $89,000 per pupil in 1976-1977 (on a 1.35 ratio of State average equalized valuations) if there were no minimum support provisions in the act. With minimum support (10% of State support limit) the intended equalized tax rate applies only to districts with valuations below $80,100 (10% less than $89,000). It is those districts to which the percentages stated in the text are applicable.
To minimize confusion, however, there will be followed hereafter the Department practice of referring to the 1976-1977 guaranteed equalized valuations as being $86,000 per pupil and to those for subsequent years as $89,000 per pupil.

The constitutional remedy suggested hereinafter win not as a practical matter eliminate all discordancies in valuations per pupil. For example, Teterboro, with one enrolled pupil, has $80,129,986 of equalized valuations per pupil. But on a quantitative basis a practicable and substantially remedial formula will be seen to be feasible.

There was a qualification hereinabove of the concession that a proper comparison of equalizing effect as between Bateman and the 1975 act could be made simply on the basis of the number of equalized districts in the respective plans. See note 8. What was meant was this. Under the 1975 act the equalization factor is limited to the 65th statewide percentile of current expense budgets per pupil; and it is applied to the prebudget, not the current year, so that there is a constant one-year lag behind actuality in the budget figure against which the State support ratio is applied. These inhibiting factors were not present in computing incentive formula equalization aid under Bateman and should be regarded as narrowing the prima facie improvement in equalization of the 1975 act over Bateman.

“But we do not doubt that an equal educational opportunity for children was precisely in mind” [in the formulation of the Education Clause]. 62 N. J. at 513.

geuate, No. 1256, 1974, Section 3.

As against the 1976-1977 State average equalized valuations of $66,078 per pupil, there are such abnormal districts as Teterboro (Bergen) with $80,129,986, Rockleigh (Bergen) with $2,445,552 and Stone Harbor (Cape May) with $1,073,027.

The scale of State contribution in 1976-1977 at various assumed levels- of ratio between 1.3 and 2 is:
State Avg. E.V. ($66,078)

Guaranteed Valuation

All Categories

1.3 $ 86,000 $1,131,000,000
1.35 89.000 1.156.000. 000
1.45 96.000 1.231.000. 000
1.55 102,000 1.293.000. 000
1.65 109.000 1.361.000. 000
1.75 116.000 1.424.000. 000
1.85 122,000 1.475.000. 000
2.00 132,000 1.552.000. 000

For 1976-1977 the 1975 act as drawn results in a State contribution to the total cost of education of 38%. (This includes the *497State payments for teachers’ pensions.) At the 1.35 level (applicable in subsequent years) it becomes 40%. Significantly, it was contemplated that Bateman, fully funded, would peg the State’s contribution to the total cost of education at 40%. See p. vii, Bate-man Report. Yet Chief Justice Weintraub said, in the 1973 Robinson case: “We see no basis for a finding that the 1970 act [Bate-man], even if fully funded, would satisfy the constitutional obligation of the State.” (62 N. J. at 519).

lt is assumed that the other funding provisions of the act would not be altered so as to dilute such equality.

While it is not a judicial concern as to liow the State raises the funds to meet its constitutional obligation to afford equality of educational opportunity, it should be observed that the result of the writer’s proposal — a State share of the cost of education to the extent of 52% of the total — is by no means radical. The comprehensive study and report of the prestigious New Jersey Tax Policy Committee, submitted to Governor Cahill February 23, 1972, *499unanimously recommended full State financing of local education. Summary Volume p. 17. The Committee stated that “[t]he property tax is the chief cause of the major defects in the [tax] structure. The tax is by all measures either the highest or near-highest in the nation. It is harshly regressive.” Summary Volume p. vi. In explaining its recommendation for full State funding the Committee said:
Wide disparities in spending per pupil now exist, due to such factors as differences in regional costs of living, differing education problems, and varying education standards among districts. In response to these diverse influences, actual expenditures per pupil are heavily affected by underlying differences in taxable valuations per pupil. A State funding program must be flexible enough to recognize inherent differences among districts and yet be expressed in terms of a uniform quality of education which eliminates the effects of taxable wealth as a factor in educational quality. Summary Volume p. 17.
The concordance of the views of the Committee with those heretofore expressed by this court as to the effects of differences in district taxable wealth on the quality of the educational opportunity offered by a district will be readily noted.
The present and the previous two governors of this State have made strong representations to the Legislature and the public as to the urgent need of reducing the proportionate share of the burden of. local government, including education, to be borne by the local property tax. Effectuation of the constitutional precepts expressed in this opinion would of course tend toward that objective.

The regulations were adopted by the State Board of Education January 7, 1976.

Ín particular, plaintiffs stress the factor whereby each “AFDC” child (one whose family is on welfare) is weighted by an additional .75 units. N. J. S. A. 18A:58-2.