Tiver, Torrissi crush ‘progressive’ state school funding formula

TRENTON - Senator Latham Tiver and Assemblyman Michael Torrissi excoriated Governor Phil Murphy and Trenton Democrats after one of their largest school districts was forced to cut more than 100 positions and many after-school programs and sports.

Lenape Regional High School District, which covers 8th District towns like Medford, Evesham, Shamong, Southampton and Tabernacle, passed a budget on Tuesday that calls for 90 non-tenured staff cuts, 20 stipend position cuts, leaving more than 40 positions vacant and cuts to popular programs like gymnastics, bowling and ROTC.

“Let me be clear - Governor Phil Murphy and the Democrats in Trenton are solely responsible for the decimation we are seeing to school districts like Lenape Regional. Their inaction to fix New Jersey’s terrible school funding formula has weakened educational standards in hundreds of neighborhoods in this state,” Tiver said. 

A bill that would provide financial relief to school districts losing state aid has been left in limbo by Trenton Democrats. They plan to put it up for a vote on Monday, but missed the deadline on when New Jersey school districts legally have to hold public hearings on their budgets. Due to the poor time management, some schools were forced to adopt budgets with drastic cuts even though funding help might soon be on the way. 

“While the aid relief bill we’re voting on Monday might be a terrible long-term solution, it at least would’ve provided short-term relief for school districts. It’s too bad Trenton Democrats blew passed the deadline, forcing schools to make these hard decisions,” Tiver continued. 

S3002/A4059 was passed by the Assembly and is expected to be voted on in the Senate on Monday. It would provide funding grants to school districts losing state aid, but also allow them to raise taxes past the 2-percent cap to make up for the difference between the grants and the money they are losing.  

“I held my nose and voted for A4059 in the Assembly because I knew my schools needed immediate relief, but providing special grants and raising taxes are NOT long-term solutions,” Torrissi said. “We must take a hammer to the school funding formula and completely revamp it.”

Assemblyman Torrissi has written an op-ed on New Jersey’s school funding formula being statistically the most progressive school funding formula in the nation. It provides students in districts with a lower tax bases nearly $2,000 more per pupil when you total local fair share, state aid and federal aid, according to the Urban Institute. The state funding formula not only makes up for disparities between school districts, it heavily over funds those disparities by shifting the majority of state tax dollars to those districts. When all dollars are added up, students in the districts the formula favors each come away with $1,914 more than their counterparts, according to the Urban Institute.

“It is not sustainable to continue to funnel all of our tax dollars to a few school districts in big cities. The school funding formula was created to give kids in poor neighborhoods a level playing field; not to harm kids in rural and suburban districts, like mine, by giving them so much less. No child is worth more than any other child. It’s time for a new, fairer funding formula,” Torrissi continued. 

Many schools in Senator Tiver and Assemblyman Torrissi’s legislative district have been losing funding for seven straight years due to the passage of legislation in 2018 that forced the state to follow its uber-progressive funding formula. Fellow 8th District Legislator, Democrat Andrea Katz, was the leader of the Fair Funding Action Committee, which helped pass the 2018 bill that cuts aid from most of the schools she represents. 

“The 2018 school funding bill, S2, was a disaster because our state’s school funding formula is a disaster. Anyone who stands behind this formula is doing a disservice to the students of New Jersey,” Torrissi added.