Sweeney Ignoring Deep Flaws In School Aid Formula: Toms River School Board

As the fight goes on to convince legislators and Gov. Chris Christie to reject a deal made by Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto on school funding for the 2017-18 budget, Sweeney issued a commentary published in the Asbury Park Press (you can read it here), making his case for the drastic cuts planned for the Brick Township and Toms River Regional School Districts. What follows is the response from the Toms River Regional Board of Education to Sweeney's commentary.

TO THE EDITOR:

Regarding the June 25, 2017, commentary in the Asbury Park Press from Senator Steve Sweeney, the public is led to believe that the Toms River Regional School District is losing $3.3 million in state school aid because of decreases in enrollments over time.

The decrease in enrollments for many districts is factual, but the way that impacts a district’s aid cannot be truly ascertained until the critical flaws in the state aid formula are addressed once and for all. Not to mention, each and every year a district’s adequacy budget is calculated based on updated enrollments. For example, even at updated enrollments, Toms River Regional is $31 million under adequacy and has the 4th lowest total cost per pupil ($16,319) in the state for districts over 3,500 students. The flaws in the formula are known to these same legislators, yet they choose to plow forward trying to push numbers through what is clearly a critically flawed formula.

In terms of trying to justify their new aid proposal, can the same legislators explain how it is possible that aid increases would be given to districts who have total per pupil costs over $29,000 already (compared to $16,319 in Toms River Regional)? This highlights one of the critical flaws with the State Aid formula — it allows for unlimited per pupil costs, and gives no credit or consideration to districts with lower per pupil spending. The formula unjustly portrays lower-spending districts like Toms River Regional as not paying our "fair share" in taxes when in fact we do pay our fair share. The reason we tax less is simple: we spend less! So before taking school aid from any district, per pupil costs should first be capped and no additional school aid should be given when that cap is exceeded.

And how in good conscience can these legislators propose taking $3.3 million from Toms River Regional when we are still reeling from the effects of Superstorm Sandy and have $600 million in ratables that have yet to be recovered? The topic of property tax assessments highlights another known critical flaw of the school aid formula: it allows for districts to have significantly understated property tax assessment totals in the aid calculation, which matters greatly because a district’s "wealth" is the basis for a large portion of a district’s school aid. For example, the property wealth calculation does not include Payments in Lieu of Taxes ("PILOTs") and tax abatement programs, which excludes millions of dollars in property ratables that could be material to the calculation of a district’s school aid. The same legislators are also aware that large school aid increases, some in the millions, would be given to several districts whose towns have not had property assessment revaluations in over 25 years! Having an understated property ratable figure provides large aid dollars for several districts, and since the pot of school aid is limited, it takes away significant amounts of school aid that would be spread to the rest of the districts in the state.

We do not know how any plan could be furthered based on numbers being run through a critically flawed aid formula. Therefore, we respectfully request that state aid for the Toms River Regional School District not be reduced, and that the critical formula flaws be addressed once and for all, before our district, regional community and ultimately our students, are unjustly and unfairly harmed.

TOMS RIVER REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD OF EDUCATION