HUNTERDON COUNTY, NJ – Hunterdon County Commissioners recently voiced their strong displeasure about Governor Murphy’s recent unveiling of his proposed $55.9 billion spending plan for FY25, which contains additional school aid cuts to Hunterdon County.
Despite the Governor boasting an overall increase in school aid, several Hunterdon County school districts are slated to have their state aid cut, yet again.
During his opening remarks, Commissioner John Lanza shared these thoughts, “Within the Governor’s proposed spending plan, there is an additional $900 million for school funding, which many would think would be beneficial to all of our local schools. Unfortunately, that is not so. Cumulatively, over $9 million in state educational aid has been cut from Hunterdon County school districts under this administration. I am not the only one outraged by this. The chorus of disapproval from elected officials is bipartisan, including all of my Republican colleagues on this Board and Democrats representing parts of this County in the Legislature.”
In Hunterdon County, six school districts are slated to received state aid cuts in the Governor’s proposed budget including:
- Bloomsbury Borough, a 1.29% reduction in aid.
- Delaware Valley Regional School District, an 8.13% reduction in aid.
- Franklin Township, a staggering 12.86% reduction.
- High Bridge Borough, another double-digit reduction of 11.98% in state aid.
- Hunterdon Central Regional School District, a .68% reduction aid.
- Lebanon Borough, a 4.72% reduction in aid.
“As many of our property taxpayers know, the state aid cuts have resulted in local property tax increases as districts aim to protect against layoffs, reductions in programming, and extracurriculars for local school children. The reality is that the existing school funding formula is broken, and it fails students in suburban and rural districts,” Commissioner Director Jeff Kuhl said.
Assemblyman Roy Frieman, a Democrat, recently said, “The funding losses will be devastating to these districts. We cannot continue to follow this school funding formula as it currently stands.”
Commissioner Lanza noted that he agrees and said, “Now that this issue finally has our state legislators’ attention, we call on them to restore the $9 million cut from Hunterdon County schools under this administration.” Adding that the calls for reform of the school funding formula “are late, but better than never.”
As taxpayers continue to shoulder additional expenses because of state aid reductions, it was noted the state’s largest school district, Newark, has seen its aid increase 67%, from $750 million in 2018 to $1.25 billion this year, $33,000 per student. The average cost per student was $19,164 for the 2022-23 school year, according to a report from the state Department of Education. In Newark, state aid comprises nearly 90% of the district’s total budget.
“What’s even more infuriating, is that many of our counterparts in densely populated areas of the state continue to hand out PILOT agreements to developers that cut out tax revenue to local school districts. This causes rural districts to shoulder even more of the burden by subsidizing these urban school districts with disproportionate state aid drawn from the income taxes we pay. This has been very common in places like Jersey City, Asbury Park, Newark, and Hoboken. We cannot allow this broken school funding formula to remain in place. I urge my colleagues to join me in passing a resolution calling for the legislature to act now and pass comprehensive reform of the school funding formula,” Lanza said.
