In response to a string of state education aid cuts that have been steeper than declines in enrollment — in one case by 20-fold — a group of suburban North Jersey school boards have united in calls for legislative reform.
Several school boards in Morris, Sussex and Passaic counties have in recent weeks adopted a mirroring resolution pointing out the widening gap between state K-12 education aid allocations and enrollment changes and are pushing lawmakers for change to the funding formula known as S2.
Officials in those districts said the disparities introduced since the School Funding Reform Act of 2008 was enacted are driving up local property taxes and undermining their ability to provide the quality education required by the state constitution.
"This is a joint effort on behalf of many of these S2 districts to sort of take a stand and say that our quality of education that we are able to provide, based on the funding formula that the state has put out, it has been diminished," said Brian Kitchin, the first-year superintendent of West Milford schools.
The resolutions adopted by school boards in West Milford, Jefferson, Hardyston and other towns in the tri-county area call for immediate legislative action to reform the 16-year-old act. Recommended changes include making adjustments to avoid drastic aid cuts between school years, limiting state aid reductions when district enrollment declines slightly and ensuring that funding aligns more closely with enrollment.
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Citing an April news report in their resolutions, officials said aid cuts since the 2007-08 school year have been inequitable in the state's suburban northwest. Most in the group of 16 districts cited in the resolution have seen percentage declines in funding that more than double their declines in enrollment. Bloomingdale's disparity is near 20-fold.
Even when factoring in enrollment declines before 2008, officials say, the formula has led to an imbalance in how state aid is adjusted based on student population.
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West Milford's enrollment is about 37% less than its peak in the 2003-04 school year, state records show. That year, the district received more than $13.7 million in state aid. For the 2024-25 school year, aid was projected at less than $5.5 million, a decrease of 60% from 2003-04 and of more than 66% from 2009-10, when aid was $16,215,630 and enrollment was 3,944. Peak enrollment was 4,719.
New Jersey state legislators designed the funding reform act to fix issues in prior funding formulas. Enacted more than 15 years ago, it was phased in over the past seven years to ease the impact on districts seeing cuts ahead of full implementation in the 2024-25 school year. The process has involved shifting state funds from districts receiving excess aid to those deemed underfunded based on changes in enrollment, shifts in student demographics and variations in residents' income and property values.
According to the act, the goal was to create a fair and predictable distribution of state aid to ensure that all students had access to a quality education, while easing property tax burdens on local communities. Still, many school officials in New Jersey's suburban northwest, a stronghold of Republican representation amid a mostly Democratic state Legislature, have said the formula has left them relatively underfunded and runs counter to the reform act's legislative intent.
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This past spring, legislators seemingly admitted issues with the formula by approving supplementary funding for districts experiencing reductions in aid, though to a lesser extent than they did in 2023. The 2024 Stabilized School Budget Aid Grant Program provided $44.7 million in grants to cover 45% of school district aid reductions for the 2024-25 school year.
Another measure, signed into law in May, allowed certain districts to request property tax increases above the state's 2% year-over-year growth cap to compensate for net aid loss since the 2020-21 school year. For West Milford, the allowance permitted a 9.9% school tax increase, records show. School board officials there initially proposed a tax increase of roughly 3.3% before adopting a 2024-25 budget with a 4.9% overall tax levy increase, records show.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: North Jersey school boards join in calls for reform to state aid funding formula
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