WHERE HAVE ALL THE $BILLIONS GONE FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION?

New Jersey government has passed tax after tax after tax since 1966 to support public education.

It began with the state sales tax in 1966, followed by the state lottery in 1969, the state income tax in 1975, and casino gambling in 1979.

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been raised by these sources of taxation over the past half-century.

Yet property taxes continue to rise by an average 6 percent a year.

So where does all the money go?

Local school districts account for 60 to 65 percent of the approximately $17 billion collected in property taxes each year. And most of that goes for salaries and benefits for the members of the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), perhaps the most powerful union in the Garden State.

The State Legislature is responsible for making sure that public education is funded, one-way or another.

Our 120 state legislators have failed to come up with an equitable formula for funding public education. Instead, they let each school district and municipality raise property taxes, the burden falling on homeowners and businesses that pay property taxes.

The solution? Our impotent legislators are looking for a Constitutional Convention to resolve New Jersey’s property tax crisis.

In other words, let the taxpaying voters decide whether they want a Constitutional Convention to come up with a solution that will please all of the special interests, from the NJEA and business community, to senior citizens and minority groups.

Since no one wants to pay more taxes for one of the most expensive school systems in America, a Constitutional Convention could turn out to be a showdown among the special interests.

One way out is for New Jersey’s 566 municipal mayors to lead the way with Town Hall taxpayer meetings throughout the state. Let the property taxpayers come up with an agenda that represents their interests since they are picking up the bill for public education in New Jersey.

I tend to trust my local mayor than my state legislators sitting in Trenton. These legislators have responded to the problem since 1966 with more and more taxes that fall into a bottomless money pit.

What is needed now is rational restraint – holding the line on educational costs.

It seems property taxes – or school taxes, specifically – have become the “third rail” in our corrupt political process in New Jersey.

No matter who’s Governor or who’s our Senators and Assembly Members, the budgets keep ballooning year after year after year. Government is out of control. It is spending and taxing beyond the ability of taxpayers to pay for all of the special interests.

America was born in a Tax Revolution in 1776. It didn’t take long for this Constitutional Republic to pile up mountains of debt generated largely by the special interests.

New Jersey’s mayors can begin by listening to their property taxpayers – not the “What’s in it for me? “special interests.

Tax reform begins with the elimination of wasteful spending and a road map for consolidating New Jersey’s more than 600 school districts and 566 municipalities into an efficient, effective public service machine.

Corporations do it every day. It’s called “downsizing.”

Why can’t government “downsize” like Corporate America does to remain competitive? Economically, it comes down to survival.

The reason downsizing hasn’t happened in government is obvious: As long as taxpayers keep paying, government will keep spending.

Let the Constitutional Convention for Property Tax Reform begin at the grassroots level in every Town Hall, led by the mayors who live with and know what their constituents need – namely, reigning in runaway school taxes.

The mayors and their hometown taxpayers can make it happen.

The Legislature and the courts have failed to do it over the past half-century.

Now it’s the mayors’ turn to do it with those who pay the school taxes.

(Gordon Bishop, a national award-winning author, historian and nationally syndicated columnist, is New Jersey’s first “Journalist-of-the-Year” –1986/New Jersey Press Association.)