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School funding inequities can be fixed

By: Audrey Lane
Your Turn
Guest columnist

..... New Jersey residents already pay the highest property taxes in the nation. a major drive is the state's extraordinary spending on public education. At $26,990 per student, New Jersey ranks third nationally in per-pupil spending. Yet despite this historic investment, the system used to distribute those funds continues to produce inequities for students and unpredictable burdens for taxpayers.
..... A new report from the Garden Sate Initiative, "How to Achieve a Fairer, More Transparent School Funding Formula in New Jersey," finds that the state's school funding formula is still creating instability for local communities. The consequences are real: education and school nurses losing their jobs, schools forced to close, athletic and extracurricular programs on the chopping block, and taxpayers left to make up the difference through higher local costs.
..... The School funding Reform Act, or SFRA, was intended to allocate state funding resources fairly, but it often falls short in practice.
..... Consider three high-poverty districts: Jersey City, North Bergen and Newark. Despite similar poverty rates, funding per student ranges form $18,200 in North Bergen to $22,400 in Jersey City and $23,000 in Newark. Meanwhile, 192 districts collectively receive $396 million more than formula dictates, while 284 other receive $383 million less, largely due to caps and adjustments layered onto the system.
..... Those disparities leave families in some communities paying far more in property taxes than others do for the same educational outcomes.
..... The report indentions three core drives of the inequities.
..... First, Trenton's formula for allocating state aid lacks transparency in how formula cost assumptions and sate aid decisions are made.
..... Additionally, volatile state aid allocation that do not consistently reflect enrollment changes, as well as unrealistic Local Fair Share expectation, often exceed the state's 2% propriety tax cap. this disproportionation burdens middle-income districts.
..... Notably, over half of all state aid is concentrated in just 22 of New Jersey's 590 school districts, leaving hundreds of communities with very real budgeting challenges to shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden through their property taxes.

Practical reforms

..... As Governor Mikie Sherrill takes the reins of the state budget, alongside a state Legislature staring at a $3 billion budget hole, this issue will be among the first key political challengers of her tenure.
..... The Garden State Initiative report offers five practical reforms that could correct the imbalances:
* Stabilize and audit cost assumptions in the SFRA to slow unrealistic growth in formula demands.
* simplify Local Fair Share calculations to align with he 2% property tax cap and reduce year-to-year volatility.
* Preserves the 2% property tax cap to protect homeowners form unsustainable increases.
* Limit caps on state and increases and decreases, ensuring that funding reflects actual enrollment.
* Improve transparency with at least 60 days' notice of state aid decision and clear explanations of formula calculations and tax implications
..... These reforms would ensure that resources follow the student who need them most, while providing families and communities with predictably and fairness. More spending along is not the solution; smarter, transparent funding is.

Tax policy is laudable, so far

..... Sherrill has already indicated she wants to approach this year's [2027] budget with belt tightening - and not raising taxes. We applaud this approach and hope she sticks to this pathway that ensures state costs don't simply get passed on to commun9ites in the form of higher property taxes.
..... New Jersey already has the financial resources and expertise to provide a high-quality education for every child. But unless the formula is re-balanced, some students will continue to be shortchanged, and taxpayers will continue to shoulder disproportionate costs. Reforming the SFRA is not just a fiscal imperative - it's an educational and moral one/

..... Audrey Lane is president of the Garden State Initiative.

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