Brick Schools Lose $4.2M In Murphy's Budget

BRICK, NJ — It was news the Brick Township School District has been anticipating for months: the district will take a $4.2 million hit in state funding for the 2020-2021 school year.

That's the amount announced by the state Department of Education on Thursday, two days after Gov. Phil Murphy announced his $40.98 billion budget for New Jersey for the 2020-21 fiscal year.

The cut is the result of S2, the law signed in 2018 by Murphy that set a schedule of cuts to so-called adjustment aid that a number of districts — including Brick — have been receiving since the School Funding Reform Act of 2008.

Under Murphy's budget proposal, Brick is scheduled to receive $27,213,147, a reduction of $4,187,556 from the 2019-2020 state aid award. That cut comes despite Murphy's statements in his budget address about the need to fund public schools to provide tax relief to the middle class.

“Our public schools rank as the very best in the nation in large part because of our commitment to investing in classrooms in every community,” Murphy said in his address. “School funding is an investment in our future.”

"But, just as important, school funding is property tax relief," he said. "Let’s be absolutely clear – every new dollar in school funding is a new dollar of property tax relief. Every new dollar we provide is a dollar that doesn’t have to come out of the pockets of property taxpayers."

The $4.2 million cut for 2020-2021 is almost double what was initially projected as the cut for the school year, based on a total cut of $22,334,947. The Education Law Center, which in 2018 calculated the potential cuts, estimated Brick would lose shy of $2.2 million in the 2020-2021 school year.

The total cut in aid to Brick through S2 clearly will be higher than the amount of adjustment aid the district was receiving in 2008-2009 — Brick received $16,459,718 that year — as the district has four more years of cuts ahead. Brick is receiving $11,800,247 less aid in the 2020-2021 budget than it did in 2008-2009, the first year the School Funding Reform Act was in place. (Brick received $39,013,394 in aid in 2008-2009.)

Because the cuts so far under S2 are so significantly different from the Education Law Center estimates, it's impossible to guess how deep the remaining cuts will be. The Education Law Center in January called for a halt to the cuts until state officials can take another look at the so-called formula the education department uses to calculate state aid. The state continues to refuse to release the formula and the methods it uses for the wealth calculations for each town, despite repeated Open Public Records Act requests. Read more: Toms River, Brick Seek 'Secret' Math Equation In School Aid Fight

Though Murphy also announced a $50 million allocation for "stabilization" aid, the process to apply for that aid will mean any funds Brick might receive will not be available until 2021 at the earliest.

Last July, Brick applied for emergency aid after the district cut 60 staff positions in the district, which serves about 8,500 students. It did not receive a response until December, at which time the district was notified it would receive no aid.

The district is moving forward with a plan to repurpose Herbertsville Elementary School, using it to expand the preschool offering that's funded by a state grant. But other cuts have not been revealed. The district has repeatedly been targeted over its decreased enrollment — Brick had 10,347 students in the 2008-2009 school year — but district officials said the schools were bursting at the seams and had class sizes of 35 students or more.

Though advocates of S2 and some state officials continue to insist Brick taxpayers are not paying their fair share of property taxes to support their schools, raising the tax levy to make up for the cuts isn't an option.

Brick remains limited by the 2 percent cap on levy increases, and Murphy vetoed in January a bill that would have allowed some districts — such as Brick — a waiver of the cap to bridge the hole created by the aid cuts.

The cuts will push Brick further away from adequacy, which is the amount of spending the state education department defines as necessary for a thorough and efficient education. A thorough and efficient education for all public school students is required under the New Jersey constitution.

Brick has been one of the districts with low per-pupil spending going back to 2008-2009, when it was the seventh lowest in per-pupil spending for the group, at $10,648 per student. In 2018-19, the budgeted cost per student of $14,991 was in the bottom 25 percent of the districts in Brick's group.

Brick Township officials have maintained the district is being punished for controlling its spending. It spends $3,000 less per student than the state average, and is significantly below adequacy. At the 2 percent cap, it would take the district years to reach adequacy, if it ever were to get there.

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