Blaming years of "debilitating" state funding cuts , Jefferson Township School District officials said they will close Cozy Lake Elementary School at the end of the academic year.
District offices also will be sold to help make up for a cumulative $45 million in state aid that officials say has been lost since New Jersey recalibrated its school funding formula, known as S2, in 2018.
"The cumulative loss since the inception of S-2 will continue to grow each year," Superintendent Jeanne Howe wrote in a letter to the community on Sept. 16. "The impact of this has been profound."
Cozy Lake is currently being used for preschool and kindergarten classes and has a student population of about 200, Howe said.
New Jersey's school funding formula is controversial
Enrollment in the K-12 district has risen to about 2,700 students recently, but is still well below where it was about a decade ago. But critics of the state's school funding formula say the cuts some local districts have endured go beyond what's justified by enrollment declines.
Indeed, the S2 formula has been controversial since its inception. Seeking to increase support for districts with notable gains in population, a coalition of districts that lost funding pushed back in 2020, saying the formula hurts their students.
Jefferson is among the school systems in that position. Unlike Morris County towns that are girding for a dramatic rise in enrollment from a wave of housing construction, like Parsippany , most of Jefferson is within the New Jersey Highlands Region , where state law severely restricts development to protect drinking water supplies.
Enrollment declines also blamed
Jefferson's student enrollment actually has risen slightly over the past three years from 2,529 to 2,703, district data show. But those figures are still far below the total of more than 3,400 students the town educated in the 2012-13 school year; it was 3,030 as recently as 2017-18, according to the district. The enrollment decline is expected to resume next year.
With numbers down over the longer term, the district was forced to shut Milton Elementary School in 2021. The property has since been leased to a school for student with disabilities.
Now Jefferson finds itself on the wrong side of the state funding formula.
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"We've been warning about the S-2 cuts for the past six years," Howe told the Daily Record on Tuesday. "I have said we are going to fall off a fiscal cliff. And we're falling."
Aiming to ease the burden, Gov. Phil Murphy added $900 million in school funding to the latest state budget, though not every town got an increase. The Democrat also signed a bill in May that permitted 147 affected districts to lift, for a one-year period, New Jersey’s 2% cap for schools to increase property tax levies.
But that move was not enough to prevent Jefferson from taking dramatic steps to address the fiscal shortfall.
Next year's budget has a big hole
“This is not a decision we made lightly,” Howe wrote in her statement. “We’ve been forced to make deep cuts across the district, but despite these efforts, we have not been able to close the budget gap caused by the loss of state aid. Closing Cozy Lake and selling the Central Office are necessary steps to ensure we can continue providing quality education for our students.”
"Despite significant efforts to reduce costs, including administrative, instructional, and support staff cuts, the district is facing a $3 million shortfall heading into the 2025-2026 school year," she added. "Rather than addressing the flawed funding formula, the state gave struggling districts the ability to counteract the loss of aid by raising the school tax levy by up to 9.9% at the expense of the local community."
Jefferson chose another path, she said.
"In order to avoid placing an undue burden on the taxpayers of Jefferson Township, the difficult decision was made to close Cozy Lake Elementary and sell the Central Office building," Howe wrote.
Senator slams funding formula
Senate Republican Minority Leader Anthony Bucco, who represents Jefferson in Trenton, reacted to the school closure on Tuesday.
“From lawsuits to school closings, it is clear that the S2 school funding formula is simply not working as Democrats intended," he wrote. "Now couple that with restrictive Highlands development regulations and we have a recipe for disaster."
Bucco also represents West Milford in Passaic County, where the school district is feeling similar financial stress.
“On one hand we have a formula that is based heavily on population, and on the other we have regulations that prevent the development that is needed for municipalities to support their school districts," Bucco wrote. "Municipalities like Jefferson, West Milford, and others are being left to deal with devastating cuts that are disproportionately more than the percentage of reductions in student populations."
State responds
The state Department of Education responded to the comments made by Bucco and the district regarding S2, saying that between fiscal years 2010 and 2017, state school aid was allocated in a way that deviated from state law, and districts that saw increases in enrollment did not see corresponding increases in state aid, while districts with declining enrollment did not receive corresponding reductions.
"The New Jersey State Legislature sought to rectify these conditions through the enactment of legislation known as S2 , which aimed to realign state aid over a seven-year phase-in period," department spokesperson Mike Yaple said.
Yaple said Jefferson’s enrollment decreased by 13.2% from fiscal year 2010 to 2017 and by 20.3% from fiscal year 2018 through 2025.
"The combined 'catch-up' for the pre-2018 enrollment decline, plus the continued enrollment trend, largely explains the reduction in state aid for the district," he said.
Class sizes 'should not be affected'
Howe said she did not expect class sizes to increase. The district has posted detailed information about the reconfiguraton in store for the 2024-25 school year.
Most preschool programs will be moved to Ellen T. Briggs Elementary School. Grades K-3 will move to Stanlick and White Rock elementary schools. Grades 4-12will be housed at the middle and high school campus.
Howe said no decision has been made about the Cozy Lake property, which falls within the Highlands Region, limiting its development potential and related commercial value.
William Westhoven is a local reporter for DailyRecord.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today .
Email: wwesthoven@ dailyrecord.com
Twitter/X: @wwesthoven
This article originally appeared on Morristown Daily Record: Morris County district will close school, sell offices after 'debilitating' state cuts
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