South Brunswick Schools Facing $1.7M State Aid Cut For '22-23

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — The South Brunswick School District will have its state school funding cut by more than $1 million for the 2022-23 school year, under state aid figures released by the state Department of Education.

The school district is among about 200 school districts whose aid is being reduced under Gov. Phil Murphy's proposed Fiscal Year 2023 budget.

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.

According to the proposed budget, South Brunswick schools is slated to get $19,748,191 in aid for 2022-23, a reduction of $1,740,666 from the $21.5 million the district received in 2021-22.

Here's how the funds broke down:

• Equalization aid: $11,929,860
• Transportation aid: $2,155,118
• Special education aid: $5,479,892
• Security aid: $183,321

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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