Schools
NJ Spotlight: Democrats' Budget Plan Would Provide Much Greater Funding to Some Districts
Closer look shows Bernards Twp. could be one of the biggest winners.
Now on an 11th-hour collision course with Gov. Chris Christie, the Democratic leadership of the legislature has advertised its state budget proposals as ones that will provide property tax relief to every community by way of new school aid.
Yet a breakdown of how each district will fare shows that there will be a lot more relief for some than for others, due, in part to the disparate ways that schools have been funded for years. Some districts would get double, even triple, their expected state aid under the Democrats’ plan, while others would see just a small fraction of an increase.
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The Biggest Winners
According to an analysis by the non-partisan Office of Legislative Services (OLS) provided to legislators yesterday, the biggest winners would run the gamut.
They would include suburban districts like the Chathams, Westfield and Bernards Township, each seeing about $2 million more in aid, close to doubling what Christie proposed. Many of the county vocational school districts would get big double-digit percentage bumps. And the largest dollar increases include $11.9 million to Little Egg Harbor, a 33 percent increase, and Pennsauken’s $8.6 million, a 20 percent jump.
