Possible Toms River Schools' Cuts Spark Petitions, Anger

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Parents outraged that sports, clubs and kindergarten could be cut by the Toms River Regional School District for the 2020-2021 school year are demanding action both from local officials and the state.

Some are urging Toms River district officials to "try harder" as they begin to prepare the 2020-2021 budget. District business administrator William Doering said the school district is facing a $5.3 million cut for next school year, including a reduction of $4.3 million in so-called "adjustment aid."

Others are pushing for changes from Trenton, urging legislators to reconsider the aid cuts that were spelled out in S2, the law that amended portions of the School Funding Reform Act.

One mother, Renee Godino, has taken a multipronged approach. She's started a letter-writing campaign, urging Toms River schools' alumni to share their memories of being in band, playing sports, participating in various clubs. She's also urging people to call the office of Senate President Stephen Sweeney, the architect of S2, to request that he come to Toms River's school board meeting on Wednesday night. The board meeting is at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium at Toms River High School North.

And she's also started a petition to Sweeney titled "TR kids deserve better," to help deliver the message about the potential devastation of the cuts.

Doering and Toms River Superintendent David Healy have been fighting for the restoration of aid — or at the very least a termination of the cuts — going back to 2017. It's a battle that so far has gone nowhere. It has put the district in a very difficult position, they said last week.

"Going into the next year we have to make very, very difficult choices," Healy said. "It's either going to affect staff or programs." The priority has to be on the mandated programs, despite how critically important things such as marching band and soccer and track and Key Club are to developing students into well-rounded people, he said. Read more: Sports, Clubs, Kindergarten At Risk In Toms River School Aid Cuts

"It is unimaginable to me the position that we're in and we're going to be in if things don't change," said Doering, whose daughter and nephew attend the district's schools. "It's really sad and really unnecessary in so many ways."

Sweeney, who has led the fight to cut the aid, has said — and continues to say — school districts receiving the so-called "adjustment aid," which was written into the School Funding Reform Act in 2008, are overfunded, and that their residents are not paying their fair share of property taxes to support their schools.

Healy and Doering have repeatedly pointed to the district's per-pupil spending, which for the 2017-18 school year was the fourth-lowest per student among districts with more than 3,500 students. The per-pupil cost of $17,606 (based on enrollment of 15,531 and the district's total spending of $273,431,660) was $4,000 less than the state's adequacy spending number per pupil in 2017-18, which was $21,866. The Toms River Regional district draws students from four towns: Toms River, Beachwood, South Toms River and Pine Beach.

"We tax less because we spend less," Healy said, adding that the district is being punished for being efficient.

Bridget Maillard, who created a petition more than a year ago urging changes to S2, wants district officials to look harder for other cuts and solutions.

Pay to play for sports and clubs, which is used in some other districts to partially offset the costs, shouldn't be off the table, she said amid a lengthy discussion in a Toms River-focused Facebook group. Her petition has more than 16,000 signatures.

Others commenting in the discussion have been critical of the administration and demanding administrators be cut first — something that's a popular refrain among residents in every town. The district has one of the largest ratios of students per administrator and the state Department of Education sets mandates for administrative staff levels.

Godino's push for residents to call Sweeney's office isn't the first time the state senator has been invited to Toms River; Healy issued a similar invitation publicly to Sweeney and Gov. Phil Murphy last spring. It was an invitation that received no response.

"I really wish they would come and spend a day in our district," Doering said. "We can show them what Toms River is and what we really have. They can have their eyes opened ... if they really want to look."

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