Court Opinion

ID: 9649674
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:05:51.797751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:13.626278
License: Public Domain

Hughes, C. J.
(concurring). I concur in the result reached by the majority of the Court. And I agree with *469its conclusions with regard to the facial constitutionality of the Public School Act of 1975, except to the extent hereafter mentioned. As to those exceptions my concurrence in the majority result is made with some doubt and misgivings, engendered by elements involved in the comprehensive opinion of Judge Conford herein, as well as the able discussion by Justice Pashman of the implications of “municipal overburden.” I think it in the interest of justice and clarity that I state my reasons, and why I feel it necessary, despite such doubt, to concur in the result.
When it enacted the 1975 Act the Legislature accepted, in Article I, § 2b (5), the responsibility “[t]o monitor the system of free public schools and provide for corrective action when necessary to ensure adequate progress toward the achievement of goals and objectives.” These “goals and objectives” were necessarily framed in the context of the Legislature’s recognition (in Article I, § 2a(l)) of its constitutional responsibility to provide for “the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all the children in the state * * N. J. Const. (1947), Art. VIII, § IV, ¶ 1; see N. J. Const. (1844), Art. IV, § VII, ¶ 6, as amended, effective Sept. 28, 1875. It is equally obvious at least so long as that constitutional mandate by the people continues in existence, that the Court too must accept its continuing constitutional responsibility (aside and apart from its present decision concerning the facial sufficiency of the Act) for overview (in this or later litigation) of compliance with the constitutional imperative in application of the Act. This obligaton would implicate at the outset scrutiny of the adequacy of standards and regulations to be adopted to implement the 1975 Act, the formulation of which is delegated to the administrators of the legislative purpose (the Commissioner and State Board of Education) and the local Board of Education pursuant to rules established by the State Board. Article II, § 6, 7.
*470Beyond this, assuming the conditional facial constitutionality of the 1975 Act — the condition being the full and timely funding of the Act as specified by the majority — and the final promulgation of standards and regulations effective to fulfill the legislative purpose and meet the constitutional norm, there yet remains an additional problem going to the heart of the constitutional infirmity identified by all courts which previously have considered this question. That is, even should the Act be facially constitutional, implemented by adequate administrative standards and regulations and fully funded by timely appropriations, is not its “workability,” i. e., its actual effectiveness in the field in delivering a constitutional system of thorough and efficient public education, — still an open and, eventually and necessarily, a justiciable question? Put in another way, is the force of the remedial power given the Commissioner and the State Board by N. J. 8. A. 18A:7A-14 et saq., including the “safety-valve” provision of § 25 of the Act, in coping one by one with the 578 school districts of the State (or that lesser number perceived from time to time to be deficient in meeting the constitutional imperative) conceivably realistic in relation to its purpose? Can these provisions be effective in permitting or compelling the increase of local school budgets or the taking of other steps toward improvement in order to bring about constitutionally appropriate local compliance? And this, against the sentiment of home rule concepts which control all other municipal expenditures from the same taxable base which largely supports public education ?
These questions are difficult and their answers almost impossible to prophesy without experience. They relate to the reservations I have had in resolving my proper course of action with regard to the several elements thought by Judge Conford to foredoom, in any case, the constitutional potential of the 1975 Act however its application in actual practice might eventuate. These personal doubts have been particularly puzzling because the long record of this whole *471case demonstrates that the local school district insufficiencies (and the consequent frustration of the constitutional promise as to so many tens of thousands of New Jersey school children) result not so much, — perhaps not at all, — from a local reluctance to furnish a thorough education to children in the constitutional sense, but from pressures resulting from deficient financial resources; deficiencies so obviously attributable to imbedded and invidious disparities in the tax bases of so many of our communities. These discordancies are cogently described in the opinion herein of Judge Conford. Such discordancies are rarely disassociated in effect from those equally grave pressures on local government management enveloped in the broad term “municipal overburden,” viewed with such concern in the opinion herein of Justice Pashman. These equally vital interests of the people (though not dealt with in specific terms, as is education, in the New Jersey Constitution) whether with regard to police, fire, health or other municipal protection, are plainly related to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of the people.
“Municipal overburden” is a cause, but not the only cause of the discordancies of tax resources available for the support of public education. But “municipal overburden” as such, unless we as a Court are willing to embrace the “convulsive implications if home rule is vulnerable” (Robinson 1973, — Robinson v. CJahill, 62 N. J. at 501) must be set aside and considered to be a legislative problem. Even so, its causal relationship to municipal or school district incapacity to support education is not irrelevant. Although the court may not cure, it may certainly recognize “municipal overburden” as a causative factor in the ascertained incapacity of many school districts to meet the constitutional obligation. This even though we recognize that such incapacity may and does occur, apart and aside from the weight of “municipal overburden,” from other causes such as a paucity in basic tax ratables in business and residential property.
*472In considering, as a member of this Court, my constitutional duty at this juncture, I have recalled that the Court does not purport to “ ‘sit as a super-legislature/ ” a role firmly disavowed by this and other courts. King v. South Jersey National Bank, 66 N. J. 161, 179 (1974) (quoting Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 482, 85 S. Ct. 1678, 1680, 14 L. Ed. 2d 510, 513 (1965)). Our Court has previously and repeatedly, shown, in its judicial restraint, its profound respect for the doctrine of separation of powers of government. Robinson v. Cahill 1973, supra; A. & B. Auto Stores of Jones St., Inc. v. Newark, 59 N. J. 5, 19 (1971); Burton v. Sills, 53 N. J. 86, 95 (1968); Thomas v. Kingsley, 43 N. J. 524, 530 (1965); Jackman v. Bodine, 43 N. J. 453, 473 (1964); Grand Union Co. v. Sills, 43 N. J. 390, 403 (1964); Two Guys from Harrison, Inc. v. Furman, 32 N. J. 199, 229 (1960). A court must always adhere to that concept, bending only so far as clearly required to fulfill the constitutional duty its members swore to perform: “I will support the Constitution[s] * *
All of us have considered, some with differing views, the potential constitutional defects pointed out by Judge Con-ford. For instance, a fragment of the “minimum aid” condemned by a majority of the Court in our May 1975 decision (Robinson 1975, Robinson v. Cahill, 69 N. J. 133, 149—50) continues in § 18(c) of the present Act. Its compensation of “rich” districts which so obviously do not need such aid, at the expense of the “poor” districts, is clearly regressive and antithetical to the constitutional goal.
Yet it is much less than heretofore under the “Bateman” formula described by Judge Conford. It appears in the context of a wholly new and unprecedented legislative definition of the constitutional goal (a “plan” as invoked in Robinson 1973, 62 N. J. at 519). It is not nearly so important now as it was when in our May 1975 decision, 69 N. J. at 155, it was diverted to the “equalization” concept of Bateman. As wrong and regressive as it is, I think its magnitude is not such as to require excision, nor to cause the condemna*473tion on constitutional grounds of an act conceived by the Legislature — for the first time in New Jersey history — to define and implement the 1875 constitutional commitment to educational opportunity. I think its logical imperfection, at least presently, may be absorbed in the larger constitutional thrust of the 1975 Act, so urgently needful in the interest of New Jersey children.
Equally describable as regressive in the constitutional sense are the “categorical aids” prescribed in the 1975 Act. Yet these aids, such as transportation costs, so intertwined with the personal safety and well-being of the school population, are so essential that at least at present, and unless future non-action of the Legislature in moving toward equalization of tax resources (insofar as they are essential to constitutional support of a thorough and efficient system of education) should force that issue upon us (a contingency one hopes will not occur), we think these “categorical” aids should not be disrupted regardless of their theoretical and real collision with the constitutional precept.
Similarly, it seems impossible to quarrel with the logical criticism of the constitutional import of § 25 discussed in Section Y of Judge Conford’s opinion. It may well be, in the actual working experience of the Act, that its arbitrary restrictions on budget increases, as applied to deficient districts trying to “catch up” in their delivery of education as required by the Constitution, may one day result in a determination of unconstitutional application of the Act. Yet one must consider what is termed by the majority the “escape valve” of the Commissioner’s power to lift such restriction. The Commissioner, just as the Court, the State Board and the Legislature, is bound to fulfill the constitutional precept and it must be assumed that he will do so.
But it is the final and major point of Judge Conford’s caveat that has caused me most doubt, that is to say the inadequate approach of the 1975 Act toward the equalization of tax resources, which lack was identified by Robinson 1973 as *474the essential cause of failure in fulfillment of the constitutional commitment. The Court there said:
[I]t cannot be said the 1875 amendments were intended to insure statewide equality among taxpayers. But we do- not doubt that an equal educational opportunity for children was precisely in mind. The mandate that there be maintained and supported “a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all the children in the State between the ages of five and eighteen years” can have no other import. Whether the State acts directly or imposes the role upon local government, the end product must be what the Constitution commands. A system of instruction in any district of the State which is not thorough and efficient falls short of the constitutional command. Whatever the reason for the violation, the obligation is the State’s to rectify it. If local government fails, the State government must compel it to act, and if the local government cannot carry the burden, the State must itself meet its continuing obligation. [62 N. J. at 513]
And if tlie State is indeed to “meet its continuing obligation” to public education by the use of State aid to fill the vacuum of real and proven local incapacity to meet the constitutional commitment, it does not demonstrably do so by the 1975 Act. Eor it leaves unequalized by State aid dollars what has always been assumed to be an otherwise irreversible tax resource deficiency on the part of many impoverished school districts across the State. Yet the 1975 Act (assuming it is fully funded), as pointed out by the majority, does much else that is good for educational opportunity and is no less than historic in its definition of and commitment to the constitutional goal. Quaere: Should it be struck down now, because of the lack of a plan of more substantial equalization ?
In the area of judicial restraint and moderation there is room for accommodation to the exigencies of government, as pointed out by Judge Conford, in the consideration of practical possibilities of accomplishment. Brown v. Board of Educ. of Topeka,, 349 U. S. 294, 300-01, 75 S. Ct. 753, 756, 99 L. Ed. 1083, 1106 (1955). This Court has exercised this restraint in the timing of required accomplishment of *475a constitutional goal, without abandoning its eventual enforcement. Jackman v. Bodine, supra; Robinson 1973, supra; Robinson 1975, supra. Here one must acknowledge a difference between the timely funding of the 1975 Act as directed by the majority and the implementation over some feasible number of years of the equalization concept of State aid in terms of twice the State average of equalized assessed valuations as described by Judge Conford in his opinion (or some comparable alternative). As to the former, time has run out long since. If the Court were to fail to insist now rtpon immediate funding of the 1975 Act as a condition to sustaining its facial constitutionality, it would itself be contributing to a profound violation of the New Jersey Constitution. As to the latter, however, considering the beginning of operation and the developmental experience to be expected under the fully funded 1975 Act, I would not now predicate a finding of its unconstitutionality upon its deficient recognition of the need for substantial equalization equivalent or comparable to that recommended by Judge Conford. And if perchance in the reasonably near future there should be no effective step toward equalization, and it were to be established by proofs that such failure caused to continue to fester the invidious discordancies of tax resources destructive of the possibility of meeting the constitutional goal, I would feel constrained to then determine the unconstitutionality in application of the 1975 Act, even as Robinson 1973, supra, determined as to Bateman, 62 N. J. at 515.