JACKSON – Mayor Michael Reina and members of the Township Council weren’t shy in expressing their displeasure at state aid cuts to the Jackson School District.
When the governor released his 2023 budget recently, several school districts, including Jackson and Toms River in Ocean County, saw some deeper cuts than expected.
Jackson administrators and Board of Education members were already bracing for the expected $2.5 million cut; instead were slammed with a $6.2 million cut.
During a recent Township Council meeting, Mayor Reina said, “Council President (Martin) Flemming and I met with the Board of Education last week to discuss the shortfalls of Trenton. There is money being given to other school districts that are plus millions and millions of dollars.”
Councilman Nino Borrelli noted in his report that he had joined Mayor Reina and their former council colleague Alex Sauickie, now a 12th Legislative District assemblyman, “in encouraging Governor Murphy to reverse the public school funding cuts which will have a devasting impact on tax payers with school programs and services in Jackson.”
“We lost $6.2 million in aid in our town alone…It is obvious that Republican areas in our state like ours are taking the brunt of these unfair school funding cuts. I urge our fellow residents to call the Governor’s office at 609-292-6000 or e-mail the governor on the State of New Jersey governor’s website to urge him and his administration to stop playing partisan politics and reverse these cuts backing up his rhetoric to make a stronger and fairer New Jersey,” Borrelli added.
“A bright spot was recently announced through a court rule that the State of New Jersey now has to consider transportation costs when calculating state education funding for school districts. Bussing is a big and growing issue in Jackson and this would greatly help. It would be nice but I’ll believe it when I see it,” the councilman added.
Borrelli said, “ultimately our state won’t turn the corner until our public school funding formula is fixed.”
Council Vice President Steven Chisholm said “a lot of people have a tendency to not pay attention to what is going on in Trenton. The (income) taxes we send out, those dollars go to Trenton. Some of them come back to local towns; many of those are getting redistributed to other towns.”
“It is not going back to our citizens and not aiding our children. We have been cut almost $19 million over the course of about four years. If that is the case, how is it that we can’t find that money in King Philip’s budget? Since he has taken office (a short or long five and half years depending how you look at it), he has raised his budget almost $15 billion, that’s billion with a B, dollars,” Chisholm added.
The councilman said the governor, “can’t find $19 million to give us back our tax dollars? He has not found any shortages of places to spend or waste that money. That is a 43% increase. If you had a $250 billion budget maybe $15 wouldn’t be that much. That is a dramatic increase. This is what we’re stuck with. Mr. Murphy didn’t think it was all that much when he released $25 million to bail out more of his Goldman Sachs buddies in the Silicon Valley Bank which is belly up due to mismanagement.”
“You need to be on the phone with your legislators and your governor and demand better from them,” Chisholm added.
“To step on what Councilman Chisholm said, CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) money is still sitting in the coffers somewhere that they refuse to release,” Mayor Reina added.
The CARES Act established the Coronavirus Relief Fund and appropriated $150 billion to the fund.
Under the law, the fund is to be used to make payments for specified uses to states and certain local governments; the District of Columbia and U.S. Territories (consisting of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands); and Tribal governments.
Mayor Reina said, “I don’t know why the NJEA (New Jersey Education Association) is not stepping forward as every child deserves a proper education and should be funded the same. Level the playing field, governor, and make sure all of our children get a proper education.”
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