Politics & Government

East Brunswick Gets State Aid Boost

Gov. Chris Christie has included an increase in state school aid in the new budget.

The East Brunswick School District is set to receive an additional $1.328 million in state aid under a plan announced Tuesday by Gov. Chris Christie. The Christie Administration said the state will allocate $850 million in new aid for New Jersey schools in the Fiscal Year 2012 Budget.

. For 2011-12 school year, the district will now receive $16.473 million in state aid, $2.656 million more than the previous year.

East Brunswick received $20,087,014 in state aid for the 2008-09 school year; $15,527,825 for the 2009-10 school year, a drop of more than 22 percent; and $13,817,220 in 2010-11, a drop of more than 31 percent from 2008-09. For the current year, it expected to receive $15.145 million.

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“This year, New Jersey increased state aid to school districts by $850 million over last year, restoring every dollar of the cuts we were forced to make last year and increasing aid by an additional $30 million," Gov. Christie said via release. "We are keeping faith with our commitment to New Jersey’s children and families, spending more money per pupil on New Jersey’s students than almost any other state in the country. Now is the time to complement the dollars spent with real education reform to bring a focus on student learning, accountability and results.”

The additional aid could be a relief to district officials, who have seen state school aid and other revenue slashed drastically over the past two years. In 2010, state aid was cut mid-year by $5,008,573 when the governor announced that certain school districts with enough “surplus,” or fund balance, should use that money instead. According to School Business Administrator Bernardo Giuliana, the money needed to make it through the rest of the year wasn’t surplus, but money earmarked for the 2011-12 school year, the same year it's planning for now.

Find out what's happening in East Brunswickwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Just a few months later, for the 2010-11 school year, the district took a $6,633,436 in state aid hit, and lost an additional $423,969 to the School Development Authority. It also had to deal with a required $1.3 million payment for a new charter school, and an additional $2.4 million in cuts from the Township Council. The council made the cuts following the budget’s defeat by voters that year.

The governor’s plan includes an initial $250 million increase for all school districts, in addition to $450 million for Abbott districts, and $150 million for non-Abbott districts.

Gov. Christie added the additional school aid to the final budget document that was recently signed into law, which doubled the rate of increase to most schools that was proposed at the beginning of the year.

“This is about treating suburban districts fairly despite an unfair school funding formula,” said state Sen. Christopher Bateman (R-16) via release. “Thanks to prudent choices made since taking office and the responsible use of unexpected surplus revenues, this year’s budget is able to provide much needed relief to our schools and greater opportunity to our children.”


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