State Aid Remains Consistent for Montclair School District

The Montclair school district will receive the same amount of state aid in 2013-14 as it did this year.  

Gov. Chris Christie’s office released the state aid figures for school districts in New Jersey for 2013-14 on Thursday afternoon, which included an increase of about $93 million from last year’s numbers. In what was widely anticipated by local school administrators, there will be no change in state aid next year.

The Montclair school district will get $6.5 million in state aid for the 2013-14 school year. This figure includes $4.1 million for special education, $1.1 million in transportation aid and nearly $750,000 for security aid.

The state aid will be factored into the district’s $111.5 million preliminary budget presented by Interim Business Administrator Nicolas Puleio at the Board of Education meeting on Monday. 

Even before state aid numbers were known, the district’s preliminary 2013-14 budget included no tax levy increase and a decrease in spending of 3.3 percent. 

The consistency in state aid marks a welcomed change of course for the district, which as has seen funding vacillate downward for the past 30 years. Since a sharp drop in aid in 2010-11, the district has seen its funding rise nearly 50 percent.

Uncertainty still remains about federal funding for next year. In anticipation of the potential sequestration in Washington, or across-the-board cuts in federal aid set to begin Friday, Puleio said the district has budgeted 75 percent of last year’s federal aid funding.