Brick Schools File Suit Against NJDOE Over Aid Distribution

BRICK, NJ — A group of school districts has filed a lawsuit against the New Jersey Department of Education, calling the distribution of state aid to school districts under a new law passed last summer arbitrary and lacking in transparency, Brick Township school officials announced.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in response to changes put in place under S2, the law pushed through by Senate President Stephen Sweeney, that strips so-called adjustment aid from a number of school districts and has shifted that money to other districts.

Sweeney, in pushing the law through, contends residents in Brick and other districts being stripped of aid are not paying their fair share of property taxes.

Brick officials — and those of the seven other districts that have joined in the lawsuit — contend S2's provisions will destroy the district and leave it in violation of the state's constitutional requirements to provide a thorough and efficient education.

The lawsuit was filed by Weiner Law Group attorney Mark Tabakin on behalf of the districts. Among the other participants is the Toms River Regional School District, which stands to lose a cumulative $70 million in state aid.

"Instead of State Aid being determined in accord with the SFRA (School Funding Reform Act) and its related and predicate constitutional mandates, it is instead being determined arbitrarily and without transparency," the district said in a news release announcing the filing of the lawsuit.

"We do not object to the funding of any school district which is satisfied with its State aid, nor do we seek in any manner whatsoever to have State aid reduced to any non-petitioning district," the release said. "Because of the under-funding, each of the Petitioning Districts is unable (or at immediate risk of being unable) to provide needed programs without being forced to place an additional and more excessive burden on their taxpayers, and, in some instances, unable to do so altogether because of the State-imposed cap on property tax increases."

"Among the consequences will be staffing reductions, the failure to hire additional staff (despite recognized student needs), the elimination or reduction of programs and curriculum offerings, the discontinuance of both enrichment and extra-curricular activities, to name but a few of the negative impacts being considered," the release said.

Brick announced its plans to file suit in October after repeated efforts to address the cuts were rebuffed by the state. The district stands to lose a cumulative $42 million over the seven-year planned reduction in aid, including $2.7 million for the 2019-2020 school year.

A $1.9 million cut in 2018-19 forced the district to cut drop plans to hire six teachers and two administrators, as well as forgo plans for academic programs designed to help students struggling with reading and math. The district appealed the cut to the Department of Education, but its request for emergency aid was rejected in November.

Brick Superintendent Gerald Dalton said the decision to file a lawsuit was an outgrowth of meetings held in June with other districts affected by the cuts. Thirty-four districts participated in the initial meeting, and Dalton said there have been additional meetings since where different approaches to address the problem were discussed.

In addition to cutting aid, S2 forces school districts that are "under adequacy" — meaning they are not spending the amount per pupil the state says is necessary to provide a thorough and efficient education — to raise their tax levy by 2 percent each year until they reach adequacy.

Brick Township Schools Business Administrator James Edwards has said the issue is that even raising the tax levy by the maximum 2 percent won't be sufficient to close the gap created by the aid cut.

Edwards said according to the state's figures, Brick taxpayers should be paying more than $128 million in property taxes to support the state's definition of adequate funding. Brick is currently budgeting $116 million for 2018-19. The $128 million is a number Brick could not possibly have reached, he said.

"Even if the district had increased the tax levy by 2 percent each year" since 2011, the year the 2 percent cap on the tax levy went into effect, Brick's tax levy for 2018-19 would only be at $110 million. The district's levy for 2018-19 is $107 million.

Brick officials also contend the district is being punished for managing its expenses. According to the Taxpayers' Guide to Education Spending 2017, Brick's total cost per pupil was $18,047 for the 2015-2016 school year. The state average for K-12 schools with 3,500 students or more was $20,219 for that same period.

"This figure, along with many others contained within the spending guide will show you that Brick is a low spending district," Edwards said in testimony to the state. " ... The message being sent is that an already low-spending district should spend less."

"The SFRA is a weighted school-funding formula, the goal of which was to create a fair, equitable, and predictable formula to fund New Jersey’s school districts," the news release said. "The law, otherwise known as S2, has done no such thing. Despite rigorous advocacy efforts, we have been forced to file a legal action before the Commissioner of Education because our efforts to discuss the severe and negative impact that the state aid reduction will have on students, educational programming (planning for the future), and the taxpayers in our districts have fallen on deaf ears."

"Although we would have preferred to engage in a meaningful dialogue with the DOE to address a path forward to check the dire educational impairments caused by the reduction in state aid, the DOE seemingly is not interested in confronting the calamitous impact of S2," the release said.

"If fully enacted, the reduction in state aid will result in a catastrophic effect on educational programming for students," the news release said. "It is our fervent hope to avoid such a disastrous outcome. Of course, we remain willing and eager to mutually find an acceptable solution."

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