State Aid Lawsuit Filed By Brick, 7 Other Districts Awaits Ruling

A lawsuit filed against the state Department of Education in January by eight school districts over the distribution of state aid is still in court, Brick Township school officials said Thursday night.

The lawsuit, filed jointly by the Brick, Toms River Regional, Jackson, Freehold Regional, Manalapan-Englishtown, Ocean Township, Lacey Township, and Weymouth school districts, calls the distribution of state aid to school districts under S2, passed in the summer off 2017, arbitrary and lacking in transparency, and seeks to have a judge restore funding and prevent the state from implementing the cuts to so-called adjustment aid as laid out in S2.

Brick Township stands to lose more than $42 million cumulatively over the course of the cuts, and Toms River school district officials have put the cumulative cuts to that district at $70 million.

Thursday night at the Brick Township Board of Education meeting, school district Business Administrator James Edwards said the district and the other plaintiffs are waiting for a decision from the judge overseeing the case to a motion for dismissal that was filed by state Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal.

Mark Tabakin of Weiner Law Group, the attorney handling the lawsuit for the districts, filed a brief opposing the attorney general's motion, Edwards said. It was not clear when a ruling might happen on the bid to dismiss the lawsuit, he said.

The lawsuit contends the education department's aid distribution is capricious and that the state's "local fair share" figures don't reflect the real property values of many towns, especially where towns have not had recent property revaluations.

State Sen. Stephen Sweeney, who pushed S2 through, contends the districts that are losing aid have lost enrollment and are receiving money that should be going 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 and should have had their aid cut because enrollment was falling.

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

A message left for Tabakin on Friday seeking additional information was not immediately returned.

More than 170 school districts had their state school aid reduced as a result of S2, and of them more than 70 have joined an organization called Support Our Students/Save Our Schools, which has been meeting with legislators about the impacts of the cuts.

In Brick, Jackson and Toms River, the aid cuts will increase class sizes to more than 30 students as teachers are eliminated. The lawsuit says Lacey Township, Brick and Weymouth will be forced to eliminate full-day kindergarten. Ocean Township has to halt a solar panel project that would have decreased energy costs and will have increased class sizes. Jackson, which already is using 37 trailers for classrooms, will be forced to close a school. Freehold Regional, which is comprised of six high schools, will eliminate courtesy busing and cut course offerings to students.

In addition to the lawsuit, administrators from a number of districts have been meeting with legislators to present information on the harms the cuts are doing to students across the state, and during the state's budget hearings in May and June, gave testimony on the impacts. One district, Lenape Valley Regional, said the cuts would amount to 25 percent of its budget.

Sweeney has argued districts enduring cuts need to raise taxes to make up for them; however, the state's 2 percent cap means districts cannot raise them to a level that would make up for the cuts.

Edwards has repeatedly said that even if the Brick Township School District had raised its tax levy by the full 2 percent per year since 2010, when the cap was imposed, it would still be more than $12 million short of the "local fair share" number the state says Brick Township taxpayers should be funding.

William Doering, the Toms River schools business administrator, has said the local fair share calculations have risen at rates far higher than actual property valuations in the Toms River district.

READ MORE:

• Brick To Sue State Over School Funding Cuts
• Brick Schools File Suit Against NJDOE Over Aid Distribution
• Toms River Schools To Join Brick In Lawsuit Over State Aid

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