Scotch Plains-Fanwood Schools To Gain $1.1M In State Aid Next Year

SCOTCH PLAINS, NJ - The Scotch Plains-Fanwood Regional School District is set to gain $1,139,397 in state aid — an increase of over 18 percent — under aid figures for the 2023-24 school year announced by the New Jersey Department of Education on Thursday.

In 2023, Scotch Plains-Fanwood schools received $6,262,473; next year, the district is slated to receive $7,401,870. The district's 2023-24 state aid package includes $792,773 in transportation aid, $6,095,791 in special education aid and $513,306 in security aid.

On Tuesday, Gov. Phil Murphy's administration released a proposed $830 million K-12 state school aid funding plan for the 2023-24 school year, with State Treasurer Elizabeth Maher Muoio noting the budget would include “unprecedented levels” of school aid. Murphy also proposes an additional $109 million towards the state’s universal preschool program.

“This support is also critical not just for keeping our public schools the envy of the nation – and lifting up others – but it will also help districts and educators continue to turn around the learning loss we know occurred when the pandemic forced our students to move to remote learning,” Murphy said during the Tuesday announcement.

Support for the budget hasn’t crossed party lines, though: State Republicans unveiled their own plan to fully fund schools, which they also say will lower property taxes around the state, last week. This plan uses the state’s $6.5 billion surplus and requires local governments to lower property taxes dollar for dollar, GOP legislators said. Read more about that proposal here.

Senate Republican Leader Steven Oroho has criticized the school funding formula in the past, and said the plan continues to cut funding at some districts while it funnels money into others.

“Since he took office, Governor Murphy has cut funding each year to hundreds of rural and suburban school districts,” Oroho said in a statement. “If we’re funneling $1 billion more into education, there shouldn’t be cuts to any school districts, especially as we’re dealing with plunging test scores and pandemic learning loss across New Jersey.”

Education aid represents a significant portion of New Jersey's tax dollars. The state's $50.6 billion budget for the current year (Fiscal Year 2023) includes $9.9 billion in K-12 aid — $650 million more than the prior fiscal year's.

Since the 2020-21 school year, the state has determined its annual distribution of education aid through S-2 — a controversial funding formula passed in 2018, Murphy's first year in office.

Supporters of S-2 say the formula assists districts that were consistently underfunded through the prior school-aid formula, which passed a decade prior. Critics contend that the current formula has deprived other communities of much-needed educational aid.

- With reporting by Michelle Rotuno-Johnson and Karen Wall.