Here's What We Know About Ciattarelli's School Funding Formula

NEW JERSEY — Taxes and school funding are some of the first things that New Jersey voters keep in mind when they hit the ballot boxes. Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli has built his campaign on lowering property taxes and revamping the state's school funding formula.

Ciattarelli has said in countless campaign speeches and debates that the current formula is "nefarious, arbitrary, unfair," and "unconstitutional," and at the last two gubernatorial debates he said the state needs a "flatter, more equitable distribution of aid."

Rarely has Ciattarelli gone into specifics about his funding formula, but during an August campaign event in Jersey City, Ciattarelli said he would institute caps on per pupil spending. Ciattarelli described the ideal amount for spending per pupil to be between $15,000 and $20,000.

At the August event, Ciattarelli said his plan would include "something along the lines of ‘X’ for every English speaking student ‘Y’ for every English language learner with the state taking over the cost of special ed."

Ciattarelli has insisted that his funding formula will "leave no child behind."

That state's current funding formula was created through the School Funding Reform Act of 2008 and is one of the most complex in the nation. The formula assigns weight to each in a district based on need and once the cost for the students in the district is calculated, the funding is taken from local property taxes as well as the state income tax fund and distributed throughout the districts.

Ciattarelli has said his issue with the formula is that he claims districts with high costs per pupil, use state aid to "bloat the budget." Ciattarelli has often pointed to municipalities like Jersey City and Hoboken as examples of "million dollar homes with lower property taxes than places like Toms River."

At the latest debate on Tuesday, Murphy combatted Ciattarelli's school funding comments by stressing that Black and brown communities would be adversely and disproportionately affected. Murphy's school funding tactic has largely consisted of trying to fully fund the system.

At the first debate, both candidates pledged not to raise taxes if they were elected.