There hasn't been much reporting on this, but the Christie Department of Education has just restored $4.8 million in Adjustment Aid to 23 overaided districts and made $6 million in ten-year loans (or "loans") to another three districts.
So far the only reporting I've seen on this was from Amanda Oglesby of the Asbury Park Press, who wrote an article about the restoration of state aid to five districts in the Asbury Park Press's coverage zone, (Marlboro, Toms River, Brick, Middletown, and Keansburg) on October 17th.
Five Jersey Shore school districts that faced hundreds of thousands of dollars in state aid cuts have learned that the money will be restored, according to the New Jersey Department of Education.
The announcement came from the department this week that schools in Brick, Keansburg, Marlboro, Middletown and Toms River will receive thousands of dollars more in state support than had been promised last summer.
Early last spring, each district balanced its budget on a state aid promise that would later prove ephemeral. State Democrats struck a deal over the summer that moved a portion of the districts' promised money to schools that were not receiving their fair share under the State Funding Reform Act.
After a query to Ms. Oglesby and the Department of Education I learned that there were other districts who either got all of their Adjustment Aid back or received a loan to be repaid over ten years out of future state aid.
These are the districts who are having their Adjustment Aid restored.
Several of these districts are massively overaided. Hopatcong's excess was going to be $5,888 per student even before the restoration. Weymouth was going to be overaided by $9,463 per student. Brick by $2,703 per student.
The Department of Education letters do not go into any detail as to what the justifications were for the restorations. The letters begin like this.
Pursuant to the provisions of P.L. 2017, c. 99, the New Jersey Department of Education (Department) has performed a review of your district’s application for additional general fund state aid for fiscal year 2018. Our review has been conducted in the form of a needs assessment; the purpose of which is to evaluate the merits of the district’s request for additional general fund state aid. Your district’s 2017-18 general fund state aid was originally $2,373,620 and had been reduced by $47,472 to $2,326,148. Your application requested $47,472 in additional general fund state aid. Based upon our review and the recommendation of the Executive County Superintendent, your district’s application is approved for additional state assistance in the amount of $47,472.
Another three districts are getting loans, East Orange (+$3,130,330), Millville (+$811,983), and Vineland ($2,059,792).
May 2018 Update: The loans were converted to grants in Phil Murphy's FY2019 budget.
Great Meadows's application was denied.
Although the total new aid ($4.7 million) is a tiny percentage of NJ's deficit against Uncapped Aid ($2 billion without redistribution, $1.328 billion with redistribution), these restorations to the overaided strike me as deeply unfair.
Although it was difficult for overaided districts to make cuts in the summer of 2017, if NJ has new money to give out, it should still have gone into TPAF or, if it had to be spent on opex aid, to the most severely underaided districts such as Bound Brook, with its $9500 per student deficit, Manchester Regional, with its taxes in excess of 200% of Local Fair Share, and Atlantic City, whose tax base has just lost another $2 billion since state aid was calculated.
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See Also:
Update:
Since this post appeared, there's been some more reporting on the state aid restorations.
Since this post appeared, there's been some more reporting on the state aid restorations.
- From the Press of Atlantic City
- From the NJ Herald (Sussex County)
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