By Vin Gopal

It’s gratifying to report that the Senate Education Committee passed our legislation to change the state’s school funding formula so it provides equitable access to resources for every student.

The way we fund education must reflect the evolving needs of our communities by fixing the way we calculate funding. The legislation updates the School Funding Reform Act of 2008 (SFRA) offering new protections for municipalities and school districts while improving transparency and support for public schools. The bill addresses long-standing issues that have developed as many of our communities have gone through dramatic changes over the past 17 years. 

Many districts face significant funding challenges, especially in communities with high property taxes and those with rapidly changing student populations. My LD11 legislative partners, Assemblywomen Margie Donlon and Luanne Peterpaul, also are sponsors and will introduce the legislation in the Assembly next week. Our legislation addresses the disparities in state funding and the changes in local school districts in order to create a more responsive, equitable funding structure for the future.

First off, the bill requires the Department of Education to publish clear and detailed calculations of each SFRA aid category within two days of the Governor’s annual state budget message. This would increase transparency and enable local education agencies to better understand the variables that impact their funding.

The bill, S3917, also would limit any reductions in funding under the State Aid Reduction Cap to no more than two percent of a district’s total operating budget in the previous year. The legislation also makes municipal overburden protections, designed to shield districts in high-tax municipalities from excessive state aid cuts, permanent. These two elements of the bill would make it easier for school districts to know where they stand when they prepare their budgets by giving them a more accurate idea of how much state aid they should anticipate.

We also address one of the most daunting costs for local school districts, funding special education. School districts cannot control their mandated costs of transporting special education students out of district or meeting the costs of other state-mandated requirements for educating special education students.

Our legislation would require the state to annually increase Extraordinary Special Education Aid, which is provided to districts as a percentage of total cost, until it gets to 100 percent. We also would require the state to establish a Vocational Expansion Stabilization Aid mechanism to adjust funding for districts experiencing growth in student population based on enrollment increases. It would also call for the immediate creation of a task force to explore and recommend a special education funding model based on the actual enrollment of special education students in a district instead of the current “census-based” funding model. 

The reason that the school funding formula has fallen so far behind the dramatic changes in the state and in many local school districts is that the state failed to regularly review and update key components of the School Funding Reform Act of 2008. Our legislation expands the scope of the Department of Education’s Education Adequacy Report by requiring the commissioner of education to engage diverse stakeholders in reviewing key funding metrics to ensure they reflect a district's ability to support its students. 

The Education Adequacy Report also would evaluate and improve the state's education funding system by mandating long-term studies on key areas of school finance. The expanded studies will ensure key components of the formula are regularly reviewed and updated.

School funding reform will improve the predictability of state aid and ensure a fair and equitable system of school funding across New Jersey. It will give local boards of education and school administrations stability in preparing their budgets, and be fairer, more equitable, and more affordable for local property taxpayers.

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