Loch Arbour, N.J., sues over new school funding formula

From The Newark Ledger: Loch Arbour, N.J., has sued Ocean Township in an attempt to block a new school funding formula that would escalate education costs for the tiny village by more than $1.3 million. The complaint seeks to bar Ocean Township -- where Loch Arbour sends its students -- from taking any steps to collect the new school charges and to allow Loch Arbour to continue paying its previous rate until the dispute is resolved. A new school funding formula, based on assessed property values rather than on a complex list of criteria, means Loch Arbour's cost to educate its 24 students will balloon to $1.6 million -- or about $68,000 per pupil -- for the start of the next school year in September.

MAY 2009...from The Newark Star-Ledger: The tiny village of Loch Arbour, N.J., has so few students that it pays to send its pupils to schools in neighboring Ocean Township, a community from which it seceded 52 years ago. The decades-old arrangement was affordable for this Monmouth County village, which spent anywhere from $14,000 to $16,000 per pupil on education over the past decade. But under the state's new school funding formula, the average cost per student is increasing to $68,750, a price tag local officials say is impossible for homeowners to shoulder and will surely drive prospective home-buyers away.