New School Aid Bill Will Bring Some Relief To East Brunswick District

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ — Gov. Phil Murphy recently signed two bills as the solution for school districts facing steep cuts because of funding reductions.

For districts like East Brunswick, the bills will partially help cover the budget gap.

Bill A4161 provides $44.7 million in a Stabilized School Budget Aid Grant Program for grants of 45 percent of a school district’s state school aid cut for the upcoming school year. It also allows districts seeing aid cuts to increase their property tax levy by up to 9.9 percent — above the 2 percent cap under the School Funding Reform Act.

The second bill (A4059) authorizes the Commissioner of Education to permit certain school districts experiencing a reduction in state aid to submit budgets no later than five days following the enactment of the FY2025 appropriations act.

In East Brunswick, the district has over $500,000 to apply for relief and replace lost state aid, officials said. Currently, the school administration is going through the parameters and completing the applications before submitting the plan to the county for approval.

“We are currently looking at how to apply the funds to the resources the district had to cut in the budget,” Superintendent Victor Valeski told Patch.

For the 2024-25 school year, the district faced a shortfall of $7.8 million due to reduced state aid. They had to make the tough decision to eliminate 51 positions.

The $197.6 million general fund budget that the Board of Education recently adopted includes a total budgetary impact of $12.8 million. Salaries account for 69.3 percent of the budget which is $137 million and other expenditures account for 30.6 percent of the budget, which is $60 million.

But despite the good news coming from the state in the form of the two new bills, officials advise caution, as the legislation will help only for one school year.

“People have to remember that this is only one-time money and there could be additional impacts next year,” Valeski said.

“We are being strategic about what things we replace because the gap could get bigger next year.”

The school administration’s focus right now is how to get things done within the tax levy cap and trying to economize in the best way possible.

“We are trying to make our administration footprint smaller. And we’ll try to do that with attrition,” Valeski said.

The Superintendent said it was helpful to have the relief, but the real impact would come by taking a look at the funding formula.

The district administration is meeting regularly to discuss the finer points of the new aid and how it could help.

“In the next few weeks we will have a more definite plan that we will then share with the public,” Valeski said.

Have a correction or news tip? Email sarah.salvadore@patch.com