No Merger Of Lakewood Schools With Toms River, Brick, Jackson, Sherrill Campaign Says

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Mikie Sherrill does not want to merge the Toms River Regional School District with neighboring Lakewood, Brick and Jackson, in spite of a claim from a local publication, a spokesperson for Sherrill's campaign said.

The claim, by Shore News Network, arose in the wake of Sunday's gubernatorial debate between Sherrill, the Democrat running for governor, and Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican candidate, where the candidates responded to a question about forcing school districts and towns to merge to reduce property taxes.

"This is false information from a right-wing publication," said Sam Chan, deputy communications director for the Sherrill campaign. "Mikie does not support consolidating the Lakewood, Brick, Jackson, and Toms River school districts. She is focused on reducing New Jerseyans’ property tax burden by working with school districts to expand shared services for administration and professional services, like transportation, purchasing, and attorneys."

"By contrast, Jack explicitly said during Sunday’s debate that he won’t take on the status quo 'even though it might cost more in taxes,' " Chan said.

The Shore News Network article referred to Sherrill's comments as a plan, saying a merger would be forced and went so far as to say they would be regionalized under the Lakewood banner — a flashpoint in Ocean County because of the Lakewood School District's long-running financial problems. The Lakewood school district has borrowed more than $230 million over the last several years to keep the district operating, the Asbury Park Press reported, and it faces high costs for transportation and special education that continue to stress its finances, noted in an appellate court ruling rejecting a lawsuit that alleges the state has been underfunding the district.

New Jersey taxpayers have complained about property taxes to support the schools for decades, and calls to cut school spending — and cut taxes — have persisted longer than either Ciattarelli (63) or Sherrill (53) have been alive.

But merging school districts would require the state Legislature to act; it could not be ordered by the governor, and New Jersey, where home rule is deeply cherished across the political spectrum, has shown very little appetite for merging anything.

No bill is currently pending that would force districts of any size to merge, according to a search of pending bills. A bill introduced in 2024, S3266, offers an incentive to districts that consider it, similar to the state's School Regionalization Efficiency Program. S3266 has not been released from committee.

State Sen. Vin Gopal (D-11th District), who chairs the state Senate Education Committee, said discussions that have happened about consolidating school districts have focused on those with 500 students or fewer.

"There's nothing anywhere saying merge Lakewood and Toms River," Gopal said. "No one has even suggested it."

The focus on home rule is costly, Gopal said.

He gave the example of Neptune City, where the school district operates a kindergarten-through-eighth grade school that has 228 pupils, according to enrollment cited in the district's Sept. 18 school board agenda. The district has 361 students total, including high school students and special education students enrolled out of district. The cost per pupil is $34,193, according to state figures, but Gopal said the bulk of Neptune City's $12,343,646 budget is spent on the K-to-8 school's 228 students.

"Only 20 percent of the building is full," Gopal said, citing a per-pupil cost of $55,000, far above the state average cost per pupil.

Regionalization has been discussed for years throughout New Jersey, with proponents saying it will help reduce costs because it would reduce the costs of administration and associated professional services of running a district.

In Ocean County, taxpayers in several smaller towns pay for two sets of superintendents and district offices. In Berkeley Township, Ocean Gate, Island Heights, and Seaside Park, taxpayers pay for both their K-to-6th districts and pay taxes for the Central Regional Schools, for 7th through 12th grades. (Seaside Heights has an agreement with Central Regional where it pays a reduced amount for Central's administration to oversee its elementary schools, but still pays taxes to both districts.)
In Stafford Township and the towns on Long Beach Island, taxpayers fund the K-to-6 schools (Stafford Township School District and the Long Beach Island Consolidated School District) along with the Southern Regional District, which is middle and high school.

The overlaps also create lucrative opportunities for attorneys, architects, engineering firms and the like because the various districts also pay individually for those professional services.

Toms River already is a K-to-12 regional district, encompassing Toms River along with South Toms River, Beachwood and Pine Beach.

Gopal said creating "some meaningful shared services is the only way" to bring down property taxes.

"Studies have shown that the consolidation of K-5 and K-8 schools into K-12 districts is one of the most powerful tools we have for cutting education costs and saving taxpayer dollars," Gopal said in September 2024, when he announced a bill that would require the state education commissioner to create a plan to phase out school districts that do not serve the full range from preschool/kindergarten through 12th grade. The move would "reduce high-cost administrative jobs and redundant work while increasing shared services," he said at the time.

You can watch the exchange during the debate organized by the New Jersey Globe; it begins at the 2:40 mark of the video.

Nancy, a resident of Skillman in Somerset County, asked whether school districts or towns should be combined to reduce property taxes and whether the state should force the mergers, "given the fact they almost never happen voluntarily."

Sherrill said: "So, this is something that I know we have to do here in New Jersey because right now we have more municipalities than California and we have more school districts than municipalities. And it's raising costs on everybody. We have some school districts who have the whole administrative cost, all of the buildings, and yet they're not even running a K through 12 school system. So, we do need to merge some of these school districts. We also need to make some county-based school systems. The ones that we have are some of the best performers in our state. And this is a way in which I think we can ensure we're getting great education to people while driving down property taxes, especially in those areas where we're not running a full K through 12 system."

Ciattarelli said: "564 towns. We are a home rule state and people love their home rule. Even though it might cost more in taxes, I do not believe their state government should force consolidation. That's up to the locals. But I tell you what, if you do consolidate or you do regionalize, Governor Ciattarelli will help incentivize that to make it easier. So if you all make that decision at the local level, we're going to provide incentives. When I was in the state legislature, Princeton Borough and Princeton Township decided to become one. I worked with the administration at the time to provide 100 percent of the one-time upfront costs to make that more feasible to fix public education."

Asked to clarify, Sherrill said: "So I'd start by offering uh the carrot to help the areas that want to consolidate. But when there are areas that are not putting enough money into students, into educators, into the buildings and then they are taking a lot of money in property taxes and from the state level, then we'll have to start to look at compulsory movements."

Ciattarelli asked for 15 seconds and spoke about charter schools, which were not brought up in the question. Charter schools in New Jersey receive their funding from the public school districts where they are located. Those districts are required to send 90 percent of the per-pupil funding amount for each student to the charter school, according to Save Our Schools, a public school advocacy organization in New Jersey.

"We as Democrats are always being called the party of spend, spend, spend, yet this would save money, while the GOP is standing behind home rule," Gopal said Tuesday.