JACKSON – Members of the Township Board of Education are gearing up for this year’s budget preparation process noting that that the district will realize a $19.3 million loss in state aid through the S2 state aid funding formula following a seven-year period.
Much of Superintendent Nicole Pormilli’s report during a recent board meeting concerned the planning of the annual spending plan. She opened with a review of the cuts the school district has experienced through the state aid funding formula over the last several years.
“We have experienced a tremendous amount of cuts, with millions of millions of dollars over the last five years. We are in the last two years of this. This school year we will see a loss of $2.5 million in state aid (this year) and we will lose $806,460 after that (in the 2024-2025 school year),” she said.
The district saw a cut of $4.6 million last year in state aid and $4.3 million the year before that.
“You can imagine the huge impact it has had on our district,” Pormilli said. “The budget process has to take that all into account. Obviously, over several years we have had to cut tremendously in areas that will have the least impact on our students.”
“As a reminder to the Board and the community, before we can even begin our budget planning, we are already $2.5 million behind before we even consider all the other factors that increases our budget over the years,” the superintendent added.
Some of those factors mentioned were the contractual responsibilities for all the employees of the school district and other rising costs. “We all know that with this economy all prices have gone up. Insurance continues to go up and we have tuition and transportation which all have to be taken into consideration as we move forward,” she added. The district “has reached that place where we have reached that perfect storm scenario. You can only cut millions and millions of dollars for so long before you have a tremendous impact and it compounds over time.
“Not only do we have a $2.5 million cut, but we have a tremendous increase and change in our population, a huge increase and that has an impact on our students who need extra support and that increases our budget, as well as increases in our non-public transportation which impacts our budget significantly,” she added.
Pormilli told the Board and public that there was also an impact “on the cost of living. We have 10 schools, a transportation building and an administration building that operate and there are increases in gas, electricity, water and food that we purchase for students for lunch. All of those things have increased tremendously.
“We are starting out in a difficult place for sure. One of the things I often hear from the community … ‘what can we do to help?’ We’ve tried to send letters to the State Board of Education and the governor. We do that every year and we haven’t seen any change in the S2 projected cuts in state aid,” Pormilli added.
The superintendent said that the school district has worked with legislators on a pilot bill for three years concerning transportation for “all of our non-public schools within the district that qualify for transportation in lieu, that would allow for a consortium to provide transportation or payment to those who qualify for that.”
She said that bill (A-4461) would also fund those transportation needs differently and “would tremendously offset those costs which is a large increase to our budget. We are committed to providing transportation to our nonpublic school families but we are looking at how the state can help us with that situation.”
“It was introduced by (12th District) Assemblyman Alex Sauickie and we are hopeful that it will move forward and the Board supported a resolution in support of this and we wrote a letter to our neighboring districts and to our state legislators and our governor and the State Board of Education to support this,” she added.
The superintendent called on residents of the school district to advocate for lawmakers to put it up for a vote and to support it when it does. Pormilli said slides from the meeting’s PowerPoint presentation would also be available for review on the school district website which includes where residents can send their letters and e-mails of support to.
Board President Giuseppe Palmeri said in a social media post that Sauickie’s legislation would provide “solutions to our educational funding problems… My hope is that residents and public officials alike will stand up and promote these very important solutions.”
“Without overwhelming support, it will be an uphill battle. Why would we not support it? Call your local public officials and ask them to support Assemblyman Sauickie and especially bill A4461,” Palmeri stressed.
Pormilli explained the budget timeline includes multiple opportunities for public input and questions. “We will be putting a calendar together that will be posted on our website jacksonsd.org.
The budget will be introduced at the Board meeting in March and the Board will be polled in April and a public hearing on the proposed spending plan will be held at that time. “All the information is transparent. Everything will be posted to the website,” Pormilli said in conclusion.
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