March 14, 2024
Members of the N.J. Senate Education Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding solutions for the challenges of school district budgets. I am currently the Interim Superintendent for River Edge School District in Bergen County. Prior to this role, I successfully served as Superintendent in other districts for nearly 15 years before retiring.
I prefer to focus on solutions, rather than complaints, and that is the spirit with which I come before you today.
The obvious solution to some school budgeting challenges is to provide more state aid. Failing that, I can offer ideas to solve the contributing factors of timing and formula.
Several solutions can be considered around the issue of timing. It takes months to put together an operating budget for a school district. It seems preposterous to be told state aid figures just weeks before a tentative budget must be presented for public comment.
- River Edge was surprised to learn that its state aid would be cut by 13.66%.
- That forced us to quickly revise the budget to balance a shortfall of more than $500,000.
- We have no way to even try to raise revenue until November for the following year’s budget.
Please consider these solutions for the issue of timing.
- Develop an online calculator function that administrators can use to forecast any loss or gain of state aid.
- Allow districts a grace period. We all know that expenses will go up; it is doubly hard to also learn – late – that revenue will go down. Give us more time to adjust budgets after state aid amounts are known.
- Create another mechanism to raise revenue – and do that ASAP. In River Edge, the 2% cap gives us just $350,000 more to contend with cost increases. Meanwhile, our state aid was cut by about $516,152 and health care expenses rose 15%. It is not feasible to place a budget question on the November ballot on such a short timeline.
Several other solutions can be considered around the issue of the formula, specifically three of its factors.
- Formula factor number 1: Enrollment count
- The student count in River Edge dropped by just five students.
- That difference is significantly out of line with a $516,152 reduction in state aid. Related to that is: We have no way to even try to raise revenue until November for the following year’s budget
- Formula factor number 2: Students are different
If small changes in enrollment continue to be a determining factor of state aid, a solution to budget challenges would be to update the funding formula to meet modern needs.
- The per-pupil funding formula is outdated with a base of about $12,450. That’s too low and it should be raised.
- That formula includes aid adjustments for very specific categories of need – such as English Language Learners. But the formula does not consider many other challenges that today’s students face.
- The funding formula should be raised and updated, at the very least, to recognize that public schools serve all students and some of them require extra attention.
- Formula factor number 3: Community wealth
- The 2% cap is applied like a blanket across the state: Tax revenue can’t rise above it anywhere.
- Meanwhile, wealth goes up or down in some communities, as indicated by the factors of equalized home and income values.
There must be a solution that allows districts to push beyond the 2% cap when there are strong indications of growth in community wealth. And that timing cannot wait from March to November. That seems preposterous.
you for the time you put into the legislative supports and boundaries for public education in the State of New Jersey. And thank you for letting me share an on-the-scenes perspective of budget challenges and potential solutions.
Dr. Matthew J. Murphy 