Middletown Schools Could Lose $5.5 Million In Aid Over 7 Years

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — The Middletown public school district stands to lose an incredible $5.5 million in state aid over the next seven years if a new school funding formula currently being battled out in Trenton goes through.

The issue of how to fund New Jersey schools is tied up in the ongoing budget battle between Gov. Phil Murphy and the state Legislature, a stalemate that is bringing New Jersey closer to a July 1 state shutdown with each passing day.

It's hardly just Middletown that could lose big time. Hazlet, Tom River, Freehold, Brick and more than 100 suburban and rural towns across the state would lose millions in a school funding bill proposed by state Senate President Stephen Sweeney. His bill, Senate Bill S2, would cut so-called "adjustment aid" to more than 100 districts in order to push more aid to what he says are severely underfunded school districts.

In fact, the superintendents of Hazlet and Middletown, along with 30 other school districts, attended an emergency meeting Tuesday, where they voiced their strong objections to Sweeney's bill.

"Middletown Township is slated to lose $276,961 in state school aid for the 2018-2019 year if Senate Bill S2 is approved," said Amy Gallagher, Middletown school district's business administrator. "That is not the end of the story; over the next seven years Middletown's state school aid would be reduced by $5,539,227. This represents 30% of our current state funding."

"Middletown Township Public School District has joined forces with 35 other districts in a coalition focused on urging state legislators to delay taking action on school aid reallocation until (there is) a more thorough and complete review of the funding formula," she said.

She pointed out that nearly all school budgets have already been submitted and approved for next school year, 2018-19.

"We are extremely concerned that for the second year in a row, the state legislature is considering a reallocation of state school aid in an accelerated timeline that disregards the fact that districts' budgets for the upcoming year have already been finalized and approved," Gallagher said. "Many initiatives included in districts' 2018-2019 budgets are already underway in order to have projects and implementations of new programs completed before the start of school in September."

Gov. Murphy said he won't agree to Sweeney's school funding formula until there are recurring revenue streams in the budget, which would likely come in the form of tax increases. With each passing day, the back-and-forth is sending New Jersey closer to a stalemate over the budget and quite possibly a government shutdown on July 1.

One thing that all sides — including Gov. Murphy and state legislators — seem to agree on is that New Jersey's school funding formula needs to be revised. A key contention is that the existing formula used to determine state education funding is severely flawed, and has been for quite some time. Components such as wealth and income are not calculated fairly; the formula fails to take into consideration PILOTs (payments in lieu of taxes, paid by developers to towns instead of property taxes); and more than 30 towns have not had property revaluations — a key facet in determining need — in more than 25 years.