South Brunswick Schools To Lose $4M In State Aid In 2023-24

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — Last week Gov Phil Murphy’s administration proposed its fiscal year 2024 budget and nearly 157 New Jersey school districts will see a decrease in state funding, including South Brunswick.

The South Brunswick School District will get a total of $15,684,951 in state aid for 2023-24. That's a decrease of 20.6 percent or $4,063,240 from 2022-23 when the school district got a total of $19,748,191.

Murphy proposed an additional $834.4 million in state school aid in his 2024 budget, bringing the total in formula aid to $10.75 billion. He also proposes an additional $109 million for the state’s universal preschool program.

“This support is also critical not just for keeping our public schools the envy of the nation – and lifting up others – but it will also help districts and educators continue to turn around the learning loss we know occurred when the pandemic forced our students to move to remote learning,” Murphy said during the announcement.

The school Superintendent expressed his disappointment at the proposed fund cuts. In a letter to the community, Scott Feder said the district was "devastated" by Murphy's announcement.

"This harrowing news was not foreseen as we have been working off a schedule provided by the State. You may recall that this year we were slated to lose 1.2 million dollars (which was bad enough), however, now with these State Aid figures, it will actually be $4,000,000 that we are losing," Feder said.

"What is more insane is that surrounding districts continue to receive millions in increased
aid, with many districts’ half our size or less receiving millions of new dollars."

The Superintendent asked the community to attend the Board of Education meeting on March 9 where a detailed budget presentation will be made. In light of the recent announcement, the district has also added an additional Board of Education meeting to the calendar for March 16 to approve and adopt a tentative budget for next year.

"I cannot express the level of disappointment we are feeling at this time and want to assure you

that we will do everything possible to keep the impact as manageable as we are able to keep
South Brunswick School District the stellar district that we all know and love," Feder said.

The school aid is based on the controversial S2 funding formula passed in 2018.

The governor defended S2, saying the funding formula had to change to address inequities within the state. However, critics have pointed to the losses in state aid among many school districts, which has resulted in cuts while other districts get increases.

FY2024 would be the sixth of seven state budgets that S2 will impact. The State Republicans have criticized the 2024 school funding.

"It’s shockingly destructive and completely indefensible when his administration is sitting on a $10 billion surplus that could support our schools and prevent huge property tax increases on families that are barely getting by," Republican Senator Michael Testa (R-NJ1) said in a statement.

State Republicans unveiled their own plan to fully fund schools, which they also say will lower property taxes around the state, last week. This plan uses the state’s $6.5 billion surplus and requires local governments to lower property taxes dollar for dollar, GOP legislators said. Read more about that proposal here.

School district aid is an influential factor when deciding property taxes. Many districts say that cuts, or even flat spending, force them to raise taxes for local homeowners.

While Murphy's budget is merely a proposal, the state-aid figures provide school districts with a roadmap for developing their 2023-24 school year budgets.

(With reporting from Michelle Rotuno-Johnson)

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