A Judge has Dismissed lawsuit brought by the Lakewood BOE against the dept of education. The state last year initially was to give Lakewood $30 million in funds but than it was stripped out of the budget. The BOE passed the budget assuming it was getting the funding.
The Lakewood Shopper reports that the judge ruled Lakewood BOE does not have standing to assert the various claims in the complaint.
R' Aaron Lang a lakewood lawyer and teacher who initialy sued the state to change the funding formula for Lakewood ads:
The district’s case in federal court was dismissed for the essentially the same reasons its case was dismissed last July in NJ administrative Court. Besides for being moot due to the loan,
the court reasoned that it would have had to interject into the political process and the sovereignty of the legislature. See EDU 08386-2019.
As for standing issue in the federal filing, the state tried to dismiss Alcantara in 2015 saying that district has standing, not my students. This was convenient for the state to argue since the BOE did not want to join me. NJ law has been clear since the 1980s that students have standing, not a BOE.
What perplexes me is the federal filing. San Antonio v Rodriguez 411 US 1 (1973) says that education is not a fundamental right. The Supreme Court also said that disparities in funding based on wealth and geography do not violate equal protection. The NJ funding law does not discriminate against a protected class (San Antonio ISP's students also were mostly members of a protected class) So the discrimination argument does not seem to have merit. The SFRA is rational under the federal constitution because its disparately affects everyone in Lakewood, not just those of a protected class. (Many people would like to see San Antonio reversed, but Lakewood will not be the test case).
The only cause of action is under the T & E clause of the NJ constitution, not federal.
Both BOE lawsuits are similar to the suit filed as Brick, Toms River, et. al. v NJ DOE, EDU 2207-17 which was dismissed last year, also because those BOE did not have standing.
Why do towns waste so much of their taxpayer money with expensive lawyers?
Aaron Lang
Whatever happened to the funding formula lawsuit?
ReplyDeleteThe boe lawyer won all the lawsuits against the boe. for some reason he can't win on behalf of the boe.
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DeleteCan s/o explain why the Township is spending approx $400k on new garbage trucks; 250k on new police cars; 1.5 mil on new fire truck; the list goes on... such a waste of unzere gelt. Do you think the garbage feels more comfortable in latest state of the art truck?? The Police salaries are already the highest in the State and if they don't enjoy a ride in the basic $50k police Ford, they can enlist elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteBrick. Jackson, TR have old schoolbuses etc etc it's only the rich Lakewood Twnshp (taxpayers)that can afford the luxxury
ReplyDeleteAll those houses going up ,where is that money a,average of 10 million dollars
ReplyDeleteWhen a defective medical device such as a metal hip implant is released on the market, it can cause widespread harm to many users.Read More
ReplyDelete