Christie Underfunded State Aid by Almost $15 billion

Christie underfunded SFRA
by almost $15 billion, not
$9 billion as the NJEA and ELC
always say.

One of many myths about state aid spun by the NJEA and Education Law Center is that Chris Christie underfunded SFRA by a cumulative $8-$9 billion.

Speaking in January 2017 NJEA vice president Marie Blistan said:

NJEA Vice President Marie Blistan today called on members of the Joint Committee on Public Schools to commit to fully funding the state’s existing school funding formula, known as SFRA. She pointed out that since 2010, SFRA has been underfunded by approximately $1 billion per year by the Christie Administration. As a result, school funding across the state has been distorted, leading to what she called “gross inequities” among districts.

Writing in March 2017 NJEA president Wendell Steinhauer wrote:

"Now the same governor who robbed public schools of $8 billion over seven years wants to move at break-neck speed to blow up SFRA, which is New Jersey's best hope for restoring fairness and adequacy to school funding." [my emphasis] 

The Education Law Center perpetuates this inaccuracy as well.

In May 2016 the Education Law Center claimed "Governor Christie has shortchanged districts through a combination of state aid cuts and flat funding over six years. The level of SFRA underfunding in the current school year is $1 billion."  [my emphasis]

The ELC has also disseminated The $1 billion per year deficit with graphics took. See below.

Source:
http://www.edlawcenter.org/research/school-funding-data.html

Phil Murphy, who is not known for pulling punches against Christie, has used the $8-$9 billion numbers too.

This governor [Christie] has underfunded by over $8 billion. It’ll be over $9 billion by the time he he leaves. Let’s fund the formula.  (see minute 4:18)

Susan Cauldwell of the anti-redistribution group SOS-NJ has also repeated the $8 billion number:

"since this Governor took office, New Jersey's public schools have been shortchanged by $8 billion dollars."

YET $9 BILLION IS WRONG.  THE REAL DEFICIT FOR CHRISTIE'S EIGHT BUDGETS WAS ALMOST $15 BILLION.*

The claim that Christie only underfunded SFRA by a cumulative $8-$9 billion is based on SFRA's deficit relative to Capped Aid and that isn't the real deficit since Capped Aid is an artificial, arbitrary 10% or 20% increase on what an underaided district already gets.

As the SFRA statute says:

d. For the purposes of this section, “State aid growth limit” means 10% in the case of a district spending above adequacy and 20% in the case of a district spending below adequacy.

Even if a district gets under a fifth of its recommended state aid, Capped Aid is still a 10% or 20% increase on what it already got.  (So SFRA would bring a district funded at 20% up to 24%)

Since the Education Law Center and NJEA oppose redistributing Adjustment Aid, they minimize the true deficit in order to conceal from the public the impossibility of full funding without redistribution.

Just to give some examples of the gaps between the Capped Aid target and what SFRA actually says these districts need:

• Clifton's Capped Aid is $36,064,992, its Uncapped Aid is $74,093,370 
• Woodbridge's Capped Aid is $34,797,211, its Uncapped Aid is $81,363,623 
• Edison's Capped Aid is $18,590,429, its Uncapped Aid is $45,921,546 
• West Orange's Capped Aid is $9,522,169, its Uncapped Aid is $26,124,668 
• Kingsway's Capped Aid is $11,518,972, its Uncapped Aid is $20,222,609 
• Plainfield's Capped Aid is $149,560,172, its Uncapped Aid is $179,338,042 
• Egg Harbor Township's Capped Aid is $50,206,010, its Uncapped Aid is $72,674,342. 
• Belleville's Capped Aid is $32,383,816, its Uncapped Aid is $47,434,533 
• Bloomfield's Capped Aid is $27,624,372, its Uncapped Aid is $49,910,867 
• Dover's Capped Aid is $31,087,078, its Uncapped Aid is $43,325,959 
• Freehold Boro's Capped Aid is $12,839,774, its Uncapped Aid is $23,900,977 
• Red Bank Boro's Capped Aid is $4,284,067, its Uncapped Aid is $9,546,929 
• Chesterfield's Capped Aid is $985,426, its Uncapped Aid is $4,144,448

Now, after an OPRA request I have gotten the full Actual Aid versus Uncapped Aid numbers for the whole SFRA era.  As usual, I've put the data online.  2008-09 (deficits only), 2008-09 (surpluses only),  and 2009-10 to 2017-18 (with surpluses and deficits).  The 2009-10 to 2017-18 data is broken out in several ways you may find useful.

Governor	Year	Surplus for Overaided Districts	Deficit for Underaided Districts	Net Deficit
Corzine Budgets	2008-09	$850,612,518	-$1,070,057,669	-$219,445,151
	2009-10	$752,374,727	-$1,081,450,799	-$329,076,072
Christie Budgets	2010-11	$461,955,034	-$1,811,812,562	-$1,349,857,528
	2011-12* ESTIMATE (see explanation)	$814,920,490	-$1,688,904,291	-$873,983,801
	2012-13	$741,197,763	-$1,756,082,962	-$1,014,885,199
	2013-14	$601,946,392	-$1,768,823,521	-$1,166,877,129
	2014-15	$528,748,944	-$1,845,609,244	-$1,316,860,300
	2015-16	$629,688,455	-$1,941,050,091	-$1,311,361,636
	2016-17	$567,773,913	-$1,946,380,098	-$1,378,606,185
	2017-18	$666,689,051	-$1,972,595,563	-$1,305,906,512
Total Corzine		$1,602,987,245	-$2,151,508,468	-$548,521,223
Total Christie		$5,012,920,042	-$14,731,258,332	-$9,718,338,290
Total SFRA History		$6,615,907,287	-$16,882,766,800	-$10,266,859,513

As you can see, there is a steady trend of an increasing deficit since SFRA's inception in 2008-09, but SFRA was substantially underaided in the Corzine era, when the deficit actually was (coincidentally) the $1 billion that the NJEA and Education Law Center claim it is now, up to nearly $2 billion in 2017-18.

The $1.07 billion deficit for 2008-09 would be $1.22 billion in 2018 dollars.

Corzine actually did statutorily follow SFRA in 2008-09, but in 2009-10 he only allowed 171 underaided and under-Adequacy districts to receive aid increases and then capped those increases at 5%.  Corzine's 2009-10 budget also benefited from one-shot federal stimulus money.

The trend of increasing deficits in SFRA is just history repeating itself, since CEIFA had a trend of increasing deficits which reached an (estimated) $1.336 billion in 2007-08.  

The history of Adjustment Aid is more complex and I cannot trace every factor at work.  

In 2008-09 Adjustment Aid was a massive $850.6 million aid stream for 250 districts, an amount that would be $918 million in 2018 dollars.

Adjustment Aid decreased slightly in 2009-10 under Corzine before crashing by $290 million in 2010-11 when Christie cut state aid across-the-board by an amount that was equivalent to 4.9% of (almost) every district's budget.  

Adjustment Aid increased again after the Abbott XXI decision (18 of the Abbotts were already overaided in 2010-11) and Christie's gradual increase in state aid to non-Abbotts before shrinking again as Christie redistributed Adjustment Aid for 2012-13. 

Note, my data for 2008-09 is more limited than my data for the other years of SFRA.
I suspect that there were districts who were 100% funded that year, but I cannot be sure
of that number, hence I am not 100% sure of the number of underaided districts.

Let's Use Real Deficit Numbers

The Education Law Center knows how SFRA operates and knows what Uncapped Aid is.  Before pressure mounted to redistribute Adjustment Aid, the ELC produced charts showing state aid deficits and surpluses against Uncapped Aid.

However, now that there is a vocal movement calling for the redistribution of Adjustment Aid, the Education Law Center has switched tack to diminish SFRA's deficit in order to make full funding look budgetarily possible without redistribution, even claiming that Phil Murphy's $284 million increase for 2018-19 is the first step towards "full funding."

Governor Phil Murphy’s proposed education budget for FY19 is the first in eight years to distribute state aid according to the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA), New Jersey’s weighted student funding formula enacted in 2008. The Governor’s proposal also puts the state on a path towards full funding for all school districts in four years.

I strongly oppose the Education Law Center stance against redistribution, but what bothers me the most is their misrepresentation of what SFRA's authentic deficit even is.

It is narrowly accurate to refer to the $1 billion a year deficit as the "statutory deficit," but the Education Law Center does not add any such qualification and hence, they say Christie only underfunded SFRA by about $1 billion a year, or $9 billion cumulatively.


Now that the Education Law Center has completely given up on suggesting any way to pay for its preferred policies it has decided to deny the real cost of what those ambitions even are.

In what must cause the Education Law Center much consternation, awareness of SFRA's real deficit is coming out, like this April 2018 piece on NJSpotlight.

While the ultimate goal of the state aid reform movement is fair funding, getting there requires transparency on Uncapped Aid deficits.  Let's fight to guarantee that too.

---

1. NOTE 1: 2011-12 is an Estimate since SFRA was Not Run that Year: I made the estimate of what Uncapped Aid was for that year by averaging 2010-11 Uncapped Aid with 2012-13 Uncapped Aid.   Because that year's surplus and deficit are estimates, the sum of $14.7 billion in underfunding for the Christie era is also an estimate.  If 2011-12 is subtracted, SFRA's total cumulative deficit would be $15.2 billion and the Christie era would be $13 billion. 
2. NOTE 2: I did not factor out Interdistrict Choice money from any year's state aid, nor apply "Commercial Valuation Stabilization Aid."
3. NOTE 3:  There are some minor discrepancies in Adjustment Aid between the data the DOE sent me via OPRA and what is publicly available for the early years of SFRA. The State Aid Notices for the last few years are highly inaccurate and they may have been inaccurate starting in 2009-10.
4. NOTE 4:  I requested Uncapped Aid for 2008-09 to 2017-18, but the DOE did not send me 2008-09. However, I had made an earlier request for Uncapped Aid that year which the DOE did comply with. Adjustment Aid that year was on-formula and public.  I've used my earlier OPRA request for 2008-09 for the deficit and the public State Aid Notices for the Adjustment Aid surplus.

Abbott XXI Increased Adjustment Aid

-------

• "SFRA Was Never Fully Funded"
• "The Skews of Capped Aid"
• "The Long Wait for Full Funding Under Capped Aid"

Despite Aid Increases, Inequalities Worsen: Phil Murphy's FY2019 Aid Proposal

UPDATED STATE AID ANALYSIS IS HERE

On Thursday, March 15th, the Murphy Department of Education, led by Asbury Park's former superintendent Lamont Repollet, released its proposed state aid figures for 2018-19.

Due to a combination of raising the income tax to 10.75% and a surge in state revenue, the Murphy administration is able to meet the next step of the Christie administration's ten-year rampup to full TPAF funding (+$392.5 million), as well as provide big increases for free community college (+$50 million), free PreK (+$57 million), and what I assume is another round of mostly Abbott construction (+$148 million in debt service)

The Murphy administration is proposing to increase K-12 operating aid by $283 million, which would be the biggest state aid increase since 2012-13. They are claiming this will bring New Jersey to full funding of SFRA, "The Governor is committed to putting New Jersey’s schools on the path to full funding within four years, and is proposing an additional $283 million in formula aid."

While that increase is worth lauding, the Murphy administration is following SFRA (almost) to the letter, including increasing Adjustment Aid for already overaided districts and utilizing SFRA's flawed design of how to distribute new aid.

Therefore, while the underfunding of state aid diminishes slightly, the inequalities of the distribution are exacerbated.

(I have calculated aid growth in dollars per student and put it online here.)
(I also have Actual Aid vs. Uncapped Aid here.)

1.  Insufficient Help Goes to the Lowest Aided

The reason the distribution is unfair to the most underaided districts in NJ is that the Murphy

administration strictly followed the State Aid Growth Limits, which restrict a district's aid gain to 10% or 20% of what it got the year before, regardless of how underaided it is.

For the 2009-2010 school year and thereafter, total stabilized aid shall include Equalization aid, Special Education categorical aid, Security Aid, and Transportation aid.
d. For the purposes of this section, “State aid growth limit” means 10% in the case of a district spending above adequacy and 20% in the case of a district spending below adequacy.

Back in 2008 the authors of SFRA were being overly optimistic about NJ's revenue growth, but Capped Aid was supposed to be an incremental step towards the goal of real, full funding, not the goal itself.

The Murphy administration, however, is treating Capped Aid as the goal in itself, is making the achievement of Capped Aid by FY2023 the goal and calling that "full funding."

Hence, the districts that are supposed to get a 20% gain in one year are stretching that out into four 5% gains.

Phil Murphy to New Jersey
"Capped Aid = Full Funding"

Because the State Aid Growth Limits are calculated based on existing aid, the lower a district's state aid is, the less money it gains in real terms.  (see "The Skews of Capped Aid")

For instance, Freehold Boro got 45% of its recommended, Uncapped Aid for 2017-18 and is underaided by over $7,675 per student.

Under the proposed State Aid distribution, Freehold Boro will gain 5% ($534,991), which equals $318 per student. Likewise, Red Bank Boro, which only gets 38% of its Uncapped Aid (-$4219 per student), will likewise only gain 5%, or $178,503, and yet that only equals $127 per student.  

Bound Brook, NJ's most underaided district in dollars per student (-$9,546 per student for 2017-18)), is gaining 5%, but that is only $300 per student.

In 2017-18 Steve Sweeney and his state aid reform allies - Paul Sarlo, Louis Greenwald, Teresa Ruiz, Joann Downey, Eric Houghtaling - based new state aid on deficits and even though they had only $130 million to work with, they delivered larger aid boosts to the most underaided districts in New Jersey.

On the other hand, districts that are modestly underaided will gain far more.  

Trenton was only underaided by $2856 per student, but for it to gain 5%, equals $793 per student. 

Newark was underaided by $2852 per student for 2017-18 but its 5% gain equals $729 per student.  Paterson was only underaided by $3,062 per student but its 5% gain equals $717 per student.  

Half of all new aid will go to only thirteen districts, all Abbotts.  As usual, the Abbotts get about 55% of all new aid.

Under the Murphy/Repollet plan, any district that already gets 83% or more of its Uncapped Aid will reach full funding in four years, but districts that receive 60% or less will have to wait years, even decades.  

Since Freehold Boro receives 45% of its Uncapped Aid, At increases of 5% a year Freehold Boro will bring only be at 65% of what is its 2017-18 Uncapped Aid by FY2023. Under this pathway it would take Freehold Boro 16 years to reach what is just its 2017-18 Uncapped Aid (neglecting inflation and enrollment growth).

Some districts are even worse off. Chesterfield only got 19% of its Uncapped Aid in 2017-18. Under Murphy's planned 5% increases Chesterfield will take THIRTY SIX YEARS (2054!) to get what is only its 2017-18 Uncapped Aid.  (Chesterfield's aid increase is a paltry $52 per student)

Some districts that are underaided but nonetheless above Adequacy are the most screwed. Cherry Hill was underaided by $1397 per student, but it is gaining only $44 per student.  West Orange was underaided by $2459 per student, but is gaining a pathetic $36 per student.

Although it is a unique district, Lakewood is only gaining $239,242, or $39 per student.

2. Adjustment Aid is Sustained and Increased

Even worse than blindly obeying the flawed State Aid Growth Limits is the restoration of Adjustment Aid to about 172 already-overaided districts, for a grand total of an additional $28,604,340 increase in aid.

• Marlboro was overaided by $5.3 million, it is gaining $270,369 (+$58 per student)
• Pemberton was overaided by $25 million, it is gaining $658,924 (+$154 per student)
• Brick was overaided by $23 million, it is gaining $750,798 (+$88 per student)
• Asbury Park was overaided by $24 million, it is gaining $796,127 (+$360 per student)
• Hopatcong was overaided by $9.2 million, it is gaining $169,007 ($109 per student)
• East Orange was overaided by $22.5 million, it is gaining $1,114,526 (+$115 per student)
• Jersey City was overaided by $151 million, it is gaining $1,863,714 (+$61 per student)
• Manalapan was overaided by $13 million, it is gaining $498,300 (+$100 per student)
• Ocean Township was overaided by $5.5 million, it is gaining $464,924 (+$175 per student)
• Keansburg was overaided by $6.9 million, it is gaining $160,716 (+$114 per student)

Even Deal, whose Local Fair Share is $17 million for 178 students, is gaining $124,117 (+$697 per student) (this is mostly from Interdistrict Choice)

Asbury Park's state aid gain of $796,127 is actually greater than its severely underaided neighbors, Red Bank Boro (+$178,503) and Freehold Boro (+$534,991) will get COMBINED.  No wonder Asbury Park's superinintendent is "delighted."

 

Since Murphy plans to "fully fund" (ie overfund) overaided districts for another three years, the total projected gain is $84 million.  

The legal justification for increasing aid to the overaided is that Adjustment Aid technically does not allow a district to receive less than 102% of what it got in 2007-08, but Adjustment Aid was cut in 2010, 2013, and 2017.

What Phil Murphy and Lamont Repollet are trying to do is bring all these overaided districts back to their aid levels of 2008-09. Hence, since Jersey City's aid was then $417.9 million versus $410 million for 2017-18 , the Murphy administration has it on a four year path back to $417.9 million. Likewise, Asbury Park's peak aid was $57.6 million versus the $54.4 million it got in 2017-18, the Murphy adminstration has a four year path for Asbury Park back to that peak.

(See "How Overaided Districts Would GAIN Money if SFRA is Not Changed.")

If Adjustment Aid were reduced by a fifth, according to Steve Sweeney's state aid reform plan, NJ's underaided districts would be gaining an additional $128 million. ($128 million = a fifth of 2017-18's $640 million in excess aid)

3.  Ignoring SFRA When It Benefits the Overaided

Lamont Repollet has already told people that he had "no choice" but to blindly obey Adjustment Aid and the State Aid Growth Limits, but he is ignoring SFRA when it benefits overaided districts.

SFRA has no statutory sunset for Adjustment Aid, but it does allow a minimal decrease in Adjustment Aid is allowed if a district's enrollment loss after 2008 exceeds 5%.    (See "Adjustment Aid Has No Statutory Sunset")

There are actually 45 districts that SFRA calls for $9.8 million in cuts to, but Murphy/Repollet are ignoring this provision of SFRA.

District	SFRA Allowed Aid Loss (despite Adj. Aid)	Proposed Aid Change for FY2019
Beach Haven Boro	-$619	$0
West Cape May Boro	-$3,929	$0
Lawrence Twp	-$7,368	$0
Deal Boro	-$12,602	$0
South Amboy City	-$13,695	$0
Califon Boro	-$25,451	$0
Milford Boro	-$31,640	$0
Union Beach	-$37,569	$0
Hampton Boro	-$37,857	$0
Upper Freehold Reg.	-$47,019	$0
Cape May City	-$57,377	$0
Elk Twp	-$60,133	$0
Port Republic City	-$63,349	$0
Montague Twp	-$68,702	$0
Glassboro	-$71,938	$0
Commercial Twp	-$78,341	$0
Hillsborough Twp	-$81,254	$0
Washington Twp	-$86,701	$0
Delaware Twp	-$88,516	$0
Downe Twp	-$89,019	$0
Dennis Twp	-$92,124	$0
Neptune City	-$93,351	$0
Oaklyn Boro	-$98,879	$0
Brooklawn Boro	-$132,585	$0
Lafayette Twp	-$140,013	$0
Frenchtown Boro	-$154,323	$0
East Amwell Twp	-$157,165	$0
Waterford Twp	-$166,921	$0
Byram Twp	-$179,052	$0
Estell Manor City	-$202,559	$0
Harrison Twp	-$206,468	$0
Roosevelt Boro	-$213,779	$0
Upper Pittsgrove	-$252,837	$0
Ogdensburg Boro	-$259,688	$0
Bloomsbury Boro	-$286,288	$0
Clinton Twp	-$302,694	$0
Delsea Reg. H.S Dist.	-$381,559	$0
Plumsted Twp	-$421,093	$0
Greenwich Twp	-$455,185	$0
Buena Regional	-$546,074	$0
Tuckerton Boro	-$565,991	$0
Lower Cape May Reg.	-$761,881	$0
Clearview Regional	-$824,053	$0
Freehold Regional	-$885,391	$0
Hoboken City	-$1,069,199	$0
Total	-$9,812,231	$0

Conclusion

New Jersey is proposing to increase income taxes by $765 million and income taxes are actually surging, but only $283 million of that is going into K-12 state aid.

Increasing funding for NJ's many streams of indirect aid - TPAF, post-retirement medical, and construction debt service - is required, and Phil Murpy has a mandate by his electoral victory to increase PreK and community college aid as he wants.

However, Phil Murphy repeatedly promised to "fully fund that formula" and what he is doing will not bring New Jersey anywhere near to that point, and in fact, will preserve inequalities and in many cases, make them worse.  By completely ignoring the legislature's work last year to expose and fix state aid inequalities, he is trying to govern without the input of Democtatic officials who are actually more knowledgeable on state aid than he is.

All of us in the state aid reform community have our work cut out for us in explaining to the public, elected officials, and journalists why the proposed increases have to be changed.

-----

See Also

• "Tentative Reaction to the Murphy FI2019 Budget Proposal"
• "New Jersey = Debtor's Prison: The 2017-18 Budget"
• "Looking at the 2018-19 State Aid Disparities"

How Overaided Districts Would GAIN Money if SFRA is Not Changed

Recently Senator Jennifer Beck has been disseminating misleading, incomplete

Jennifer Beck is Confused About What
She Wants

information about state aid in order to slow the redistribution of Adjustment Aid.

Part of her campaign in defense of Adjustment Aid is pointing out that 157 districts that now get Adjustment Aid should not lose state aid because SFRA says they actually should get MORE state money than what they get now!

She has now twice said something to this effect.

Example 1:

It’s not clear, that redistributing Adjustment Aid is going to be as uncomplicated as some have suggested .... 157 of those districts are also underfunded relative to what SFRA says they should get in state aid,” the senator added.

Example 2:

Sen. Jennifer Beck, a Republican member of the committee, cautioned against unintended consequences with the removal of adjustment aid. She said 157 of 181 districts receiving the aid remain underfunded by the state, and abruptly taking away funding would hurt those communities. The place to start, she said, would be to redistribute the roughly $11 million from 46 districts that are overfunded by the state.

Yes, how can a district getting Adjustment Aid "remain underfunded"?

When Beck refers to Adjustment Aid districts getting _less_ than SFRA says they "should get," she is indeed statutorily correct, but she is conflating what Adjustment Aid says a district should get legally with what it actually needs.

Verification of Beck's legal claim be easily seen in the Alternative Aid Scenarios that the Department of Education produces to show how much aid districts would get if SFRA were followed, with Adjustment Aid and the State Aid Growth Limits preserved. A quick glance at even Asbury Park will reveal that is is getting $2,056175 less than SFRA says it should get (!!!!)

Giving Asbury Park more money? How can SFRA do this?

This is a consequence of the fact that SFRA does not let any district receive less than 102% of what it got in 2007-08 and the fact that in 2010 and 2013 Adjustment Aid was cut.

Due to this the Adjustment Aid 102% promise, SFRA is blind to what a district's contemporary economic needs are; unless it has a large post-2008 enrollment loss, it can never receive less than 102% of its 2007-08 funding.

The first violation of the 102% promise was in 2010, when Chris Christie cut every district's aid by an amount equivalent to 5% of its budget. These cuts affected underaided districts and overaided districts alike, but the overaided districts lost some of their Adjustment Aid while the underaided districts lost Equalization Aid, Special Education Aid etc. (Christie's cuts were later reversed for the Abbotts.)

The second violation of the 102% guarantee was in 2013 when Christie, as part of a now-obscure fair-minded phase, actually did cut $40 million in Adjustment Aid from Adjustment Aid districts who were over Adequacy.

The 2010 cuts:
EG

• Brick lost $2.3 million.
• Marlboro lost $1.8 million.

The 2013 cuts were allowed to occur for all affected districts, including Abbotts.
EG

• In 2012-13 Asbury Park lost $2.4 million. 
• Keansburg lost $1.4 million. 
• Pemberton lost $2.5 million. 

Any budget that passes the legislature is automatically legal, but these cuts were contrary to SFRA's stipulation that no district receive less than 102% of what it got in 2007-08.

Even though these districts are all overaided according to what SFRA's core formulas say they should receive, SFRA still contains the 102% provision and thereby it has a zombie-like determination to reverse the cuts of 2010 and 2013.

For instance, Asbury Park's aid is $25 million higher than its SFRA target (ie, Uncapped Aid), but according to SFRA, Asbury Park is owed another $2 million.

• This is because Asbury Park's peak aid was $57.7 million in 2008-09 and the Adjustment Aid mechanism of SFRA wants to bounce it back up to that amount.
• Pemberton's aid is also $25 million higher than its SFRA target, but SFRA wants to give it another $1 million. 
• Keansburg is overaided by $7 million against its real real need, but is underaided by $500,000 against Capped Aid. 
• Brick is overaided by $23 million, but would get another $2.2 million under SFRA. 
• Marlboro is overaided by $5.3 million, but would gain another $800,000. 

Most NJ districts are slightly underfunded against Capped Aid and significantly underfunded against Uncapped Aid, but for 157 Adjustment Aid districts, they are underfunded against Capped Aid, but overfunded against Uncapped Aid.

If SFRA were followed as it is currently written, 157 of New Jersey's overaided districts would actually gain a total of $84 million!! Asbury Park's gain would actually be larger than Red Bank Boro's in per student terms. Toms River would gain $3.4 million, even though it is already overaided by $21 million.

Particularly ridiculous is that Allenhurst, who has $5.1 million in Local Fair Share for only three students, gain another $10,612 in state aid.

There are another 46 districts who are now slightly underaided, but whose aid in 2008-09 was greater than what SFRA calculates they actually need.  Since the 102% promise in Adjustment Aid applies to these districts as well, their Capped Aid is higher than their Uncapped Aid.  For Passaic, Capped Aid is $20 million higher than Uncapped Aid; for Perth Amboy it's $11.6 million.  For Montclair, the Morris School District, and Princeton, Capped Aid is about $1 million each higher than Uncapped Aid.

If these 46 districts got their Capped Aid they would become overaided by $43 million.

Projected Gains Per StudentUnder the Adjustment Aid/State Aid Growth

Limit Status Quo of SFRA

See: http://bit.ly/2pGkPTq and http://www.nj.gov/education/stateaid/1718/scenarios.shtml

If Asbury Park and Pemberton are brought back to their peak aid levels, as Adjustment Aid dictates, the amount of aid available for truly underaided districts, including Red Bank Boro and Freehold Boro in Jennifer Beck's own district, is reduced by $84 million.  If the 46 slightly underaided districts are brought back to their peak aid levels the amount of money to give to districts like Red Bank Boro and Freehold Boro is reduced by $43 million.

Jennifer Beck is UNDERMINING the cause of fairness by making any references to the 102% promise within SFRA.

We cannot cut Adjustment Aid and keep the 102% guarantee. Since Beck purports to be an ally of Freehold and Red Bank Boros, Beck's self-contradiction here is off-the-charts.

The solution to perverse consequences of SFRA that would pour more money into overaided districts is to eliminate Adjustment Aid.

Beck, who in the past I liked, doesn't know what she wants, other than that she likes to get photo opportunities with Freehold and Red Bank Boros.

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See Also

• The Skews of Capped Aid
• The Long Wait for Full Funding Under Capped Aid

The Skews of Capped Aid

Other than the Orwellingly named aid-hoarding mechanism known as "Hold Harmless Aid," the most unfair aspect of New Jersey's School Funding Reform Act is the State Aid Growth Limits, aka "Enrollment Caps."

Due to these limits on how much money a district can gain, the most aid a district can gain is a 10% or 20% of what it got the year previous, no matter how severely underaided it is. 

(Technical Note: due to the cuts of 2010 and how low-aid districts then lost large percentages of their state aid, there are districts who would gain more than 20% from what they get now, however, that is technically due to the mechanism of Adjustment Aid, which overrides the State Aid Growth Limits for districts getting less state aid now than they did when SFRA was passed. Since this is a benign effect of Adjustment Aid, and Adjustment Aid is usually odious aid-hoarding, I prefer not to get into the weeds about it.)

Due to the existence of the Aid Caps and the fact that the Caps are percentage based, the more aid a district already receives, the more aid a district gains in dollars-per-student, which is the real measure of budgetary-tax impact.

(I got Capped Aid and Uncapped Aid amounts via an OPRA request to the DOE.  I've made the data publicly available here)

For instance, the following underaided districts all would be gaining the same amount in percentage terms if SFRA were operating:

But in the all-important dollars-per-student, the amounts the districts are getting are completely different and skewed.

What is unfair about this is that Chesterfield, Bound Brook, Manchester Regional Freehold Boro are New Jersey's most underaided districts against Uncapped Aid (Uncapped Aid = real SFRA full funding).  In percentage terms, Chesterfield does worse than any other district.  For 2017-18, Chesterfield will only get 9.5% of its Uncapped Aid, with Bound Brook (-$10,592), Manchester Regional (-$7,562 pp) and, Freehold Boro (-$8,484 pp) among the worst in dollars per student.

Newark, Paterson, Trenton, and Elizabeth are indeed badly underaided, but not by nearly as much.  Newark's aid deficit is only $3,059 pp, Paterson's is $3,252, Trenton's is $3,003, and Elizabeth's is $3,198.

As a consequence of the percentage-based mechanism of the Aid Caps, new aid under SFRA goes disproportionately to large, moderately underaided districts.

Fortunately, reforming the State Aid Growth Limits (aka Enrollment Caps) is part of Steve Sweeney's state aid proposal.  Unfortunately, no one in the media and few among other politicians understands what the State Aid Growth Limits even are.

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See Also:

• The Long Wait for Full Funding Under Capped Aid
• SFRA Was Never Fully Funded