$2.78M State Aid Cut For Toms River Schools As Fight Continues

TOMS RIVER, NJ — On Tuesday, more than 800 members of the Toms River Regional School District went to the Statehouse to plead their case. More than 100 others sent emails, to Gov. Phil Murphy, to state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, to state Education Commissioner Lamont Repollet, urging them to rethink a plan to cut Toms River's state aid.

On Friday, Toms River — and school districts across the New Jersey — got the first glimpse at proposed state aid for the 2019-2020 fiscal year. It shows a cut of $2,780,498 in aid to Toms River.

"It's actually more than what we had expected," Toms River schools business administrator William Doering said. And compounded with the last-minute aid cut that was dropped on Toms River when Sweeney won passage of S2, the effect of the cut is a budget nightmare. More than $5 million in cuts will have to be made. Read more: These 190-Plus Districts May Face Tax Hike: NJ School Aid Figures

Doering said the $5.4 million figure reflects the need to restore the emergency reserves, which Toms River drained to cover the aid cut that was finalized in July 2018, nearly three months after the district's budget had been approved by both the Ocean County executive superintendent and the state Department of Education.

The state aid cut was steeper, Doering said, because the state increased the district's local fair share expectation by 8.2 percent, more than double the 2.8 percent the state says the district's equalized valuation has increased.

Aid is supposed to be distributed to schools following a formula defined under the School Funding Reform Act, which took effect in 2010. But last year the state Legislature passed bill S2, pushed by Senate President Stephen Sweeney, which forced cuts to schools said to be overfunded and not paying their fair share of the property tax burden. The state determines that local fair share based on a formula that is supposed to take into account both average income of a town and its property values.

The state Department of Education has refused to release the formula it uses to come up with those figures, officials in several school districts have said, which is part of the reason Toms River and other districts joined the Brick Township School District in a lawsuit against the education department.

Education department officials have told the school districts the formula it uses to determine school aid is proprietary information, several school districts have confirmed to Patch.

The lawsuit, filed by attorney Mark Tabakin of Weiner Law Group, is before New Jersey Administrative Law Judge Ellen S. Bass, who has agreed to expedite the process. Hearing dates have been scheduled for May 6 and May 20, Brick Township school district officials have said. Read more: Brick Schools File Suit Against NJDOE Over Aid Distribution

In the meantime, Toms River officials and others, including District 10 Sen. Jim Holzapfel and Assemblymen Gregory McGuckin and David Wolfe, continue to press for a reversal of the cuts, which Doering and Superintendent David Healy have said will force the district to cut 400 staff positions, make major changes to extracurricular offerings of sports and clubs and reductions in busing and more.

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