Cherry Hill Schools Get Flat State Aid Compared to Last Year

Cherry Hill school officials’ guess on state aid turned out to be correct when the official numbers were released Thursday, with the district getting flat funding as compared to last year.

The district will get $12,732,323, the same total as last year, though with a slightly different breakdown—special education is up roughly $120,000, while equalization aid fell by about $166,000.

The flat funding comes after two years of double-digit percentage increases following a huge cut in aid in 2010, when Gov. Christie cut aid to the district by more than half, from $16.5 million down to $7.94 million.

But district officials had planned this year’s budget figuring on no increase, as they’ve laid out in recent budget meetings.

There were rumors of possible cuts to state aid just two weeks ago, Superintendent Maureen Reusche said at a Feb. 12 budget session, and she and other district administrators were in contact with state representatives to ensure that wouldn’t happen.

While an increase would've been a bonus, said Jim Devereaux, the district’s assistant superintendent for business, it would've needed to be huge to close the gap between what the district received in 2009-2010 compared to current state aid.

“It’d be great, it’d really help us out,” Devereaux said Tuesday night, “but it’s not $1.8 million.”

At his state budget address Tuesday, Gov. Chris Christie announced an additional $97.3 million to education funding in this year’s state budget, to be split among 378 districts, and indicated no district would get a cut in aid.

“Throughout my time in office I have continuously argued that in order to grow New Jersey’s economy we must invest in education, and my proposed budget is a reflection of my commitment to our educational system and communities across the state,” Christie said in a statement. “However, even as we continue to fund education at the highest levels in state history, we must remain willing to reflect on how we are spending our money and work towards solutions that make every dollar we invest count.”

Cherry Hill was among eight districts in Camden County that didn’t see a penny more in state aid. Most districts in the county that received an increase got less than a 10-percent bump.

The smallest increase went to Pennsauken, which got exactly one dollar more than last year.

The largest increase went to Camden, which received $3.64 million. Despite the seven-figure bump, it represented just a 1.3-percent increase for the impoverished district, which gets $279.55 million in state aid—about $19,470 per student, based on 2011 enrollment figures.

Cherry Hill has yet to adopt its budget for next year; the school board postponed a vote this week, and will now vote on the budget at a special meeting March 5 at 7 p.m. in the Malberg administration building.

Cherry Hill’s 2013-2014 state aid:

K-12 2012-2013 Total Aid: $12,732,323
Equalized Aid: $5,823,558
Education Adequacy Aid: $0
Choice Aid: $0
Transportation Aid: $481,223
Special Education Aid: $6,200,217
Security Aid: $227,325
Under Adequacy Aid: $0
Supplemental Enrollment Growth Aid: $0
Adjustment Aid: $0
Additional Adjustment Aid: $0
K-12 2013-2014 Total Aid: $12,732,323
One Year Aid Change: $0
Percent Aid Change: 0