Under Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s first budget, 400 school districts would see aid levels rise, while 167 would see aid declines. In this file photo, second grade teacher Laura Foster greets students at Watsessing Elementary School in Bloomfield. (Danielle P. Richards for New Jersey Monitor)(Danielle P. Richards for New Jersey Monitor)
New Jersey would send more than $12.4 billion in aid to New Jersey schools under the budget Gov. Mikie Sherrill unveiled earlier this week, a proposal that would boost funding to more than two-thirds of the state’s school districts.
The governor’s first budget proposal largely maintains the school funding system used under the prior administration, and provisions enacted last year to limit steep swings in aid amounts, base special education assistance on actual enrollment and use a multi-year average to determine a district’s ability to raise revenue would continue in the coming fiscal year.
“My budget is focused on ensuring kids in New Jersey have access to the best education and brightest possible future,” Sherrill said in a statement.
State school aid would increase in 400 districts and fall in 167 under Sherrill’s plan. The governor proposed flat funding for seven school districts.
Sherrill’s proposal keeps in place caps on school aid changes first enacted for the current fiscal year. Under those rules, the aid a district receives under the state’s school funding formula can increase no more than 6% from the prior year and fall no further than 3%.
Aid allotments for just over half of school districts — 297 of the 574 in New Jersey — are up against those caps, and 203 districts will see a 6% increase. A little less than half as many, 94, will see their aid fall by 3%.
Each year, New Jersey’s funding formula is used to calculate how much revenue districts can raise locally, then state aid supplements that amount to reach levels adequate to deliver a thorough and efficient education, a requirement of the New Jersey Constitution.
The number of districts abutting the state aid caps belied unevenness in school funding, said Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth), the chamber’s GOP budget officer.
“Now that the formula would finally deliver long-overdue increases to districts that were shortchanged, the state budget overrides the formula to artificially cap the aid increases they are rightfully due,” he said, adding, “This is simply unfair to students, families, and taxpayers in communities that have been carrying the burden for far too long.”
Capping decreases to state aid could help ensure districts were not caught off guard by massive swings in state aid that they could not fill by raising revenue locally, said Danielle Farrie, research director for the Education Law Center.
With exceptions, property tax increases in New Jersey are generally capped at 2%, so losing large amounts of state aid can leave a district underfunded even if its tax base could support larger increases.
Limiting state aid increases was not ideal, Farrie said, because those caps could also leave a district with less funding than called for by the formula, but it was not an unreasonable tactic given the broader budget crunch New Jersey faces in the coming fiscal year.
“We have seen the disruption that can be caused by these annual reductions in state aid. If you couple that with the sort of fiscal constraints that the state is facing on a much more massive scale this year, it’s understandable that putting limitations on how much additional aid districts can get is one way to manage that,” Farrie said.
Farrie praised other school-funding budget provisions, like enrollment-based special education aid that proponents say more accurately gauges a district’s funding needs and calculating a district’s share of education spending based on a multi-year average of property values to prevent sudden shifts in state aid amounts following revaluations, proposed to recur in this year’s spending bill.
“I think we need to codify these changes in law. There’s just no other way to say it. The changes are necessary. There seems to be legislative agreement on that,” Farrie said, adding she would not advocate to make the cap on aid increases permanent.
Non-formulaic categories of aid — like military impact aid, which is awarded to districts for students whose parents are on active duty with the nation’s uniformed services, and school choice aid — are excluded from the caps, and changes to those will mean some districts see shifts that are larger than the limits would allow.
The Milford Borough School District would see the largest drop, a 17.8% decrease, because of a loss of $77,724 in school choice aid. Cape May City would see a 22.1% increase, the largest in the state, due to increases in most aid categories, including school choice aid and aid for students from military families.
Overall, 22 districts will see aid rise by more than 6%, and 10 will see it fall by more than 3%.
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