Metuchen Schools Will See An Increase Of $453,303 In State Aid

METUCHEN, NJ — Metuchen School District is all set to see an increase of 22.2 percent to its school budget for the Fiscal Year 2023.

Earlier this month, Gov. Phil Murphy's administration proposed $19.2 billion for New Jersey pre-K to 12 schools for the Fiscal Year 2023 budget. This includes an additional $649.8 million for K-12 aid to put K-12 "formula" aid at $9.92 billion.

Metuchen schools will get a total of $2,492,089 in state aid from Murphy's budget — that's an increase of $453,303 from the previous year. For the 2022 school year, the district got $2,038,786.

Here's how the funds broke down:

• Equalization aid: $0
• Transportation aid: 226,496
• Special education aid: 2,107,539
• Security aid: 158,054

Meanwhile, Edison public schools saw an increase of $11.7 million in state aid for 2023, among the highest in New Jersey. Read more: Edison Schools Will See $11.8M Increase In State Aid

New Jersey's school-funding formula for state aid comes from S2 — a controversial law passed in 2018 that modified how the state determines to allocate its funding for each district. FY2023 would be the fifth of seven state budgets that S2 will impact. Read More: 2022 NJ School Aid: Who's Getting More, Who's Getting Less

"The demographics of the state were out of sync to where the money was headed," Murphy said. "So we agreed to S2, which has a seven-year catch-up to where the demographics are in the state."

State aid is an influential factor in a district's decisions on raising local property taxes. Many say that aid cuts or flat spending each year give them cause to raise what are already the highest property taxes in the country.

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