The Jersey City Independent"

A statewide nonprofit group has filed a lawsuit to compel two New Jersey agencies to adopt rules that would potentially allow the Jersey City school district and other urban school districts in the state to plan, design and construct needed school construction projects in their communities.

The action, brought in the state Superior Court’s Appellate Division by the Newark-based Education Law Center (ELC), looks to force the state Department of Education (DOE) and Schools Development Authority (SDA) to set into motion a long-promised process that would allow some of the 31 urban school districts governed by the SDA to directly plan and construct their own projects while being supervised by the agency.

Initially, all school construction projects in the SDA districts could only be managed by the SDA, but in 2007 the legislature amended the law in an effort to both cut costs and increase the level of local involvement in the school construction process.

Under the amendment, the DOE was required to establish rules that would determine if a district generally had the capacity to undertake the construction projects, and the SDA was required to establish rules that would determine if a district had the capacity to undertake specific approved projects.

But despite a deadline of August 6, 2008 to adopt the rules, there has been little action from either agency, according to ELC. Meanwhile, the SDA’s new executive director Marc Larkins is reviewing the agency’s 2008 capital plan, which covers 52 projects in urban districts, including several projects — like the much-needed School 20 improvements — in Jersey City.

The EDC’s suit asks the court to impose a strict timetable for publishing and adopting the required rules.

“After careful deliberation, the legislature decided to allow capable districts to manage school projects in their own communities and, at the same time, reduce costly state bureaucracy,” ELC executive director David Sciarra says in a statement. “The DOE and SDA are flouting the will of the Legislature by not putting this process in place.”