SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are calling for an overhaul of New Jersey’s school funding formula, as they say it is too unpredictable year to year and leaves many school districts caught off guard.
School funding will increase by $900 million, totaling $11.7 billion for the next budget year. Despite this massive increase, more than 130 districts are seeing reductions in state aid.
Democratic state Sen. Vin Gopal, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said one of the schools in his district lost $10 million from last year’s aid total.
“We need to make sure there is at least three- to five-year budgeting so a district is not on the hook all of a sudden, like Long Branch, where they’re down $10 million and they got three weeks to figure out how to cut $10 million from their budget,” he said. “That’s layoffs. That’s real people.”
Year to year, districts often don’t know what to expect from the state, with millions of dollars in fluctuations. Over the last several years, Gopal said increased transportation and special education costs have put districts in a tough spot.
This is the last year for the current funding formula. Republican state Sen. Owen Henry agrees with the need for multi-year budgeting.
“And now we have the opportunity to fix this,” he said. “Some districts need relief now. We need to do some short-term solutions, but at the end of the day, long-term solutions. These districts need to be stabilized.”
Both senators also believe that the state isn’t doing enough to support students with special needs. Currently, the state funds about 70% of special education, but there is no headcount of the total special needs students in each district. Instead, funding is estimated by a census formula based on population.
“It has to be tiered,” Henry suggested. “What are the needs for every individual special needs [student]? Is it a tier one? Is it a tier five, where that student needs to be placed out of district?”
Special education advocate John Mulholland said magnet schools do the best job with special education under the current system, adding to a district’s costs.
“If you create fair funding that actually supports students where they are, it doesn’t disincentivize districts from trying to do the right thing,” he added.