Wayne Schools' State Aid Projected To Increase

WAYNE, NJ — The public school district is projected to receive a more than 10 percent jump in state aid, numbers from Gov. Phil Murphy's administration released this week show.

Wayne is slated to receive 11 percent more in aid, or more than $567,800, for the 2019-20 school year than it did this year. The total amount of state aid would be $5.7 million.

"As a district, we are very pleased to receive an increase in state aid. However, it is important to understand that the announcement about state aid should be treated as preliminary. There are many school districts that experienced a significant loss in state aid, and as a result, they are taking legal action that might lead to changes," said Superintendent Mark Toback. "In addition to legal activity, there is also legislative activity that might lead to revised state aid numbers."

That amount put Wayne at the higher end of the districts receiving the most state aid. Overall, 197 school districts would have a decrease under his school funding plan, and they may need tax increases to make up the differences.

The formula by which districts receive aid includes enrollment. This means some districts with reduced enrollment experienced a large reduction in state aid while other districts had major increases. A local example is West Milford where the district lost nearly $1 million of state aid.

"The net result is a school funding mess that is not easily rectified, although we appreciate the current efforts being made by the state government to try to fix this issue. We will remain cautiously optimistic. As far as the Wayne Township Public Schools are concerned, our budget revenue will be adjusted for now," Toback said. "There are budget meetings with the Board of Education scheduled in the coming weeks that will largely determine how this additional anticipated revenue will be used."

Overall, state aid would increase 2.43 over the 2018-19 school year under a plan that requires approval from the state Legislature. That number would be smaller than the 3.5 percent increase Murphy originally proposed last year, but that original plan had no state aid cuts for any district.

Click here to view the complete list of school districts and how much aid each one is projected to receive.

Email: daniel.hubbard@patch.com