Schools to See More Than $1 Million Bump in State Aid Next Year

The Verona and Cedar Grove School Districts will be seeing 7s come September, but not at a slot machine. School aid for both districts will be increasing by 777 percent for 2012, Sen. Kevin O'Toole announced this week.

O'Toole (R-40th), touted Gov. Chris Christie's Fiscal Year 2012 budget, and announced that nearly $20 million in state school aid would be returned this year to the districts in the 40th Legislative District.

“I am pleased to announce that once the governor signed the FY12 state budget, and reduced the spending increased by the majority party, school aid has increased for the 2011-2012 school year for our area,” said O’Toole.

Both Verona and Cedar Grove schools have been coping with considerably less state aid than in years past, each losing 95 percent of their state school aid in the 2010-2011 school year.

Districts got some good news in March when the governor released his preliminary FY 2012 budget, in which Verona saw a $275,172 bump in its anticipated state school aid for 2011-2012. In Cedar Grove, The district would have received additional $244,259 over its 2010-2011 aid number.

“By making tough choices and using an unexpected bump in state revenues wisely, we were able, not only to increase aid over last year, but to double the rate of increase that was originally proposed in the governor’s budget in March,” O'Toole said.

According to numbers released this week, the new state aid figure would restore $550,344 to the Verona School District, for a grand total of $621,155 in state aid to be received next year. Last year, Verona saw its aid package slashed from $1.4 million to just over $70,000.

Cedar Grove will receive $488,518 in restored aid, for total of $551,371. Cedar Grove lost $1.2 million of its state aid last year, reducing the township's share to just $62,853.

The 40th Legislative District includes a dozen municipalities in Bergen, Essex and Passaic Counties, with Verona and Cedar Grove as the lone Essex County communities in the district.