NJ School Aid 2023 Update: See The New Breakdown

NEW JERSEY — Legislators begin deliberating a bill to fund school districts set to receive big cuts under Gov. Phil Murphy’s proposed budget, which would distribute $102.7 million among dozens of NJ districts.

The bill restores two-thirds of funding set to be cut at 161 NJ school districts under Gov. Murphy’s proposed 2023-24 budget, its sponsors said.

Efforts to address cuts have been underway since state school funding figures were released at the beginning of March. Murphy's proposed budget increased state funding to more than 400 districts, but would bring cuts to scores of others.

A new agreement is spelled out in Senate bill S3732, which is headed to the full Senate after quickly passing the Budget and Appropriations committee on Monday afternoon. An identical Assembly bill, A5328, has not yet been introduced according to the state legislature.

Related articles:

• $102M Deal Set To Ease NJ School Funding Cuts, Gopal, Murphy Say
• NJ School Aid 2023: Who's Getting More, Who's Getting Less

State Republicans also unveiled their own plan to fully fund schools, which they also say will lower property taxes around the state, in late February. This plan uses the state’s $6.5 billion surplus and requires local governments to lower property taxes dollar for dollar, GOP legislators said. Read more about that proposal here.State Senators Vin Gopal (D-11) and Andrew Zwicker (D-16) are the primary sponsors of this newest bill.

Under their proposal, 161 NJ districts are eligible to receive a share of $102.8 million in additional aid, but must submit a written plan to the Commissioner of Education “explaining how the district is going to use the funds and how the district is going to fund operations in future school years in which the district does not receive Stabilization Aid or similar Supplemental Stabilization Aid."

The bill ensures each district receives up to 66 percent of the difference between the amounts given to districts in 2022-23 and budgeted for 2023-24, and appropriates money from the Property Tax Relief Fund. The Supplemental Stabilization Aid bill would only apply to the 2023-34 school year.

The cuts have been roundly criticized as Murphy touted an increase in education funding across the state that included more than $836 million in funding for K-12 schools, and as the state sits on a $10 billion surplus.

"These cuts would have been devastating to our schools, and I am grateful that we were able to come up with a solution to ensure the quality of education of all New Jersey students is not compromised," said Zwicker.

Gopal, in an interview with Patch, said the next step is addressing the S2 funding formula that led to aid cuts for 2023-24 that were way beyond what any district had anticipated or planned for and that created crises for districts that were less than two weeks from submitting their tentative budgets for the coming school year.

S2, which was signed into law in 2018, targeted districts that were said to be overfunded and losing enrollment, particularly districts that were receiving so-called "adjustment aid" when the School Funding Reform Act of 2008 took effect.

"Our schools have come under tremendous pressures over the past three years due to the pandemic, ranging from uncertainty about resources, learning recovery and a growing teacher shortage," Gopal said. "Now is not the time for more uncertainty, nor the time for districts to be asked to do with less at the precise moment they are trying to recover some sense of normalcy."

The S2 cuts, which were supposed to be spread out over seven years — the 2024-25 budget would be the final year — wiped out adjustment aid for most of the districts receiving it in the 2020-21 budget. The focus has shifted to "local fair share," which the state defines as what it says a school district's residents should be paying in property taxes to support their schools. It is defined by complex algorithm that is still the subject of litigation under an Open Public Records Act lawsuit.

The S2 aid cuts are scheduled to end with the 2024-25 school budget year, but there is no indication what will happen beyond then.

"We unanimously passed a bill in the Senate to restudy the funding formula," Gopal said, "but the Assembly has not heard it. We need the Assembly to pass that bill so we can move forward."

One of the hardest hit this year was the Toms River Regional School District, which was set for a $14.4 million reduction in aid, a 31.77 percent cut that would have been cataclysmic, Superintendent Michael Citta has said. At Wednesday's school board meeting, Citta said a $14.4 million cut would leave Toms River unable to provide a thorough-and-efficient education — a violation of the state constitution and state law. This bill would allot $9,518,422 to the Toms River school district.

The Freehold Regional High School District, which has been hit hard by S2, is scheduled for a $6.7 million cut for 2023-24, which Superintendent Charles Sampson said caught the district off-guard because they were anticipating a $2.1 million reduction, calling the cut "pernicious."

"This district has never seen a reduction of this magnitude," Lacey Township Superintendent Vanessa Pereira said in a letter to parents on March 14, saying the nearly $4 million cut in aid would create a budget crisis with "drastic reductions to our operating budget that will be painful and widespread." This bill would allot $4,464,057 to that district.

"This harrowing news was not foreseen as we have been working off a schedule provided by the state," said South Brunswick Superintendent Scott Feder, whose district was saddled with a $4 million cut, a 20.6 percent decrease from 2022-23. “We're basically being asked to run a $160 million organization with unknown information." The proposed bill would allot $2,681,738 to South Brunswick Schools.

In Hillsborough, the only district in Somerset County to lose funding, the cut of $913,103 was "... more money than we anticipated losing," Superintendent Michael Volpe said. While the cut is not forcing his district to lay off staff, "If we keep going in a direction where we are going to be continuously losing state funding that something is going to have to give eventually." The proposed bill would allot $602,650 to Hillsborough Schools.

This story contains reporting by Patch’s Karen Wall.