Op-Ed: It’s time to open up the school funding formula

Budget season has started in New Jersey, and we shouldn’t let it go by without making school funding front and center to the conversation. There are far too many school districts losing money year-over-year, issues with special education funding and transparency concerns that can all be traced back to the current formula.

New Jersey’s school funding formula was established in 2008. It exists to determine the amount of state tax dollars needed to bridge the gap between what local school districts are able to fund through local taxes and the remainder needed to provide an adequate education.

In 2018, the legislature passed a bill to “properly fund” the formula, which resulted in winner and loser districts by creating a seven-year timeline where hundreds of millions of dollars would be taken from some schools and given to others. The years of funding losses have put the screws to a lot of schools, some in my 8th Legislative District. These schools have had to cut staff, programs and increase class sizes all because of a 14-year-old formula that isn’t even made public to school districts.

New Jersey classifies portions of the formula as proprietary and won’t release it to school districts, adding salt to the wound of schools that are losing money and can’t see exactly why.

It’s time we update the funding formula, creating a more transparent process that doesn’t rob Peter to pay Paul. I’m signed onto a couple pieces of legislation that would provide short and long term solutions to all schools in the state.

First, we need to stop the bleeding. For the schools losing money hand-over-fist, a one-year pause in funding losses would go a long way in allowing them to recover from the pandemic without slashing staff or the offerings they provide to students. The legislature can pass a bill tomorrow that would dedicate a very small piece of its more than $6 billion in federal pandemic funding to offset the school funding cuts.

While we’re at it, the state can also release federal funding for school infrastructure improvements. We have billions of dollars that was billed by Governor Phil Murphy and President Joe Biden as being needed to keep people safe throughout the pandemic, yet with the pandemic waning, the millions in funding specifically meant for school infrastructure improvements has yet to go out the door. But back to the issue at hand.

One of the top unintended consequences of slashing funding for seven straight years is it forces these districts to turn to their property taxpayers with hat in hand to make up the difference. More money coming from the state means less from property owners who already shoulder enough of the tax burden in New Jersey.

We could also help ease the property tax burden by fixing the special education section of the funding formula. Currently, school districts receive state funding based on how many special needs children are listed on the census rather than those who are actually enrolled in the school. This often undercounts the amount of special needs students in districts with good special needs services, in turn punishing them for excelling at meeting the needs of the special education community. It would be a simple legislative fix to change from census-based funding to enrollment. The Department of Education already has all this data. It would also just be common sense.

The state could look into these individual adjustments or it could create a committee to rebuild the school funding formula all together, which is something that has the support of many legislators in Trenton.

The least we could do is show interest as a governing body in periodically investigating an issue that might have the single-greatest impact on property taxpayers, students and teachers.

There’s no reason to let 14 years go by without looking into something that’s so important. It’s time to dust off the school funding formula and open it back up.