State Is 'Stealing From Our Schools:' Brick Mayor Blasts Aid Cuts

BRICK, NJ — If parents in the Brick Township School District wondered whether town leaders support the fight over state funding for the schools, Mayor John G. Ducey left no doubt over where he stands on Tuesday night.

In a mostly off-the-cuff speech that lasted 25 minutes, Ducey railed at state officials and blasted cuts by the state Department of Education to state funding foaid to the district. Brick is slated to lose more than $22 million in so-called adjustment aid by the end of the 2025 school year.

For 2020-2021, there is an anticipated cut of $4.2 million in state aid to the district, and that has led to plans to close Herbertsville Elementary School, which prompted parents to attend Tuesday's Brick Township Council meeting to push the council and mayor on the issue.

"The state is stealing money from our kids and treating our kids different than another kid just because they live in another town," Ducey said.

School district officials have been warning for months that the aid cuts will have catastrophic effects in Brick. But the word that Herbertsville Elementary School would be closed has prompted action.

One of the key issues in the fight over the funding is the formula used to determine a district's wealth calculation — the figure the state uses to determine what it says is a district's fair share of the local property taxes to support its schools.

The education department has rejected numerous Open Public Records Act requests for the formula, which is used to distribute $6.5 billion in equalization aid across the state. The equalization aid is about 40 percent of the education department's budget, and is 17 percent of the state's overall budget. Read more: Toms River, Brick Seek 'Secret' Math Equation In School Aid Fight

Senate President Stephen Sweeney, who spearheaded the push to cut adjustment aid through S2, a 2018 law that amended the School Funding Reform Act, has repeatedly said Brick and other districts that are getting cuts to aid are receiving more than they are entitled to, and are not paying their fair share of property taxes. Sweeney also has repeatedly defended the formula used to calculate the wealth of towns.

Ducey called it a fake formula.

"If it wasn't fake you'd give it to us," he said. "That formula doesn't exist or it's fake or they're using it for political purposes. Something untoward is going on."

Ducey said the fact that someone has to plug in the numbers means the formula has to be a public record.

"Government has to be transparent," he said. "For them not to turn it over is illegal."

Ducey said the state's determination that Brick is wealthy because there are so many waterfront homes ignores the reality of the town's makeup.

"A lot of those houses are passed down generation to generation. The houses are worth a lot of money and they pay a lot of taxes, but that doesn't mean they're rich," he said. "We don't have millionaires all over Brick but they think we do."

"Brick is a blue-collar town," Ducey said.

There are plans in the works for a rally of Brick Township parents and residents, but those plans have not yet been finalized, school board president Stephanie Wohlrab said. Wohlrab was in attendance at the meeting and asked the mayor and council for their continued support.

Ducey invifted Sweeney and Murphy to come to the township "and really see what Brick is, what we're about."

"We're not a bunch of multimillionaires," he said.

And he urged the state to put together a funding package that awards the same amount of aid to every child in the state. A similar solution was proposed by then-Gov. Chris Christie in 2016 as his "Fairness Formula." That formula was shot down by a number of groups over concerns that it would severely undermine educational supports for students in low-income districts.

"We need our children treated the same as every other child in this state," Ducey said. "We're not second-class citizens because we live in Brick."

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