368 Job Cuts, 'Ridiculous' Class Sizes In Toms River: What Slashing $26.5M Would Mean

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Last spring, when the Toms River Regional School District reached an agreement to sell 17 acres of land to Toms River Township to help fill a hole in the district's budget, Superintendent Michael Citta warned the district was facing a far worse problem for 2024-25: an expected shortfall of more than $26 million.

The number has been repeated for months, particularly as the district has moved to hold a referendum on a potential merger with the Seaside Heights School District. Citta and Business Administrator William Doering have expressed hope that if voters approve the merger, Toms River Regional would get some relief from the state aid cuts that have drained the district over the last seven years.

As the deadline for finalizing the 2024-25 school budget nears, Citta says he has been repeating that number and expressing the district's dire situation over and over to state officials as he seeks help to fill the shortfall.

"It has been a rough couple of weeks," Citta told the district's Board of Education during its budget committee meeting Wednesday night. "Even though everybody recognizes we are the lowest spending district in the state of New Jersey, I was asked to put together an impact statement," explaining to state officials the effects if there is no solution to the shortfall.

Citta emphasized that the impact statement is not a blueprint for what the district will do or cuts he would make.

"This is nothing I would recommend the board to do," he said. It was simply an illustration of how critical the district's financial squeeze has become after seven years of cuts under S2.

To cut $26.5 million from the tentative budget of nearly $291 million would require eliminating 368 staff positions, Citta said. The district has 1,300 teaching staff members.

The elementary schools would lose 168 staff members, which would push class sizes to 76 students from the current 24 pupils in kindergarten through fifth grades.

The secondary staff — sixth through 12th grades — would lose 150 positions, and class sizes in core subjects of math and English would average 68 students, up from 30 currently.

Citta said that if the district "did it equitably and we took from special education," taking away 50 self-contained classrooms, the district would have to place an additional 480 students in out-of-district settings, which would cost the district $36 million, including nearly $5 million in transportation.

Cutting the special education classrooms is not permitted under the law, Citta told the board, so instead the remaining 50 positions would be cut from the elementary schools. The resulting class sizes: 235 students.

"Where are we going to put them, the gym," a member of the school board said.

"This is the impact statement," Citta said, calling it an "exercise in futility."

"This is obviously ridiculous," he said.

Citta said he has been asking the state Department of Education to allow Toms River Regional to apply for a loan — "an advance on our aid, I was told," he said — but to be eligible for a loan there are several criteria the district must meet, including having spent all its surplus and having exhausted its emergency aid.

Another criterion: putting a referendum to the district's taxpayers seeking approval to increase the tax levy by more than the2 percent cap to cover the shortfall.

There's a catch with that, however: Districts cannot ask permission to exceed the 2 percent cap to pay for items that are part of providing a thorough and efficient education. New Jersey's Constitution guarantees students a thorough-and-efficient education.

"Everything in our budget is T&E," Citta said during the Citizens Budget Advisory meeting in March. "There isn’t one thing in that budget our kids can’t not have."

"I can’t ask our community to raise taxes on anything in our budget that is T&E," Citta said at that meeting.

Beyond that, any referendum held on increasing the property tax levy would be held in the fall, long after the 2024-25 budget — and any cuts — is finalized.

If the district has to cut nearly 400 jobs, "we can’t open our buildings," Citta said. "I cannot sign a budget that doesn’t provide T&E."

While the district has talked about a $26.5 million shortfall — a gap created in part by the $14.4 million cut Toms River Regional was saddled with in 2023 that was temporarily backfilled through a one-time infusion of supplemental aid through a law sponsored by Sen. Vin Gopal, head of the state Senate Education Committee — Citta said the district is actually $55 million below the threshold for what the state says is needed to provide a thorough-and-efficient education.

The impact of the cuts is showing in test scores, he said, as noted in the District Performance Reports issued during the week after Easter, which showed poor results at a number of schools in the district.

"You can literally look at dollar amounts that go to support and resources for children in Toms River and watch our scores plummet right along side it," Citta said. "There is a direct correlation."

He also noted that the District Performance Report paints a false picture of the resources the district has. It says Toms River has a ratio of 13 students to one teacher, but Citta said that number represents an average skewed by special education classrooms, which have much lower class sizes.

The district has nearly 3,400 students who have individual education plans, which includes students who need to be in self-contained classrooms.

That has played a role in why the district cannot simply close schools, in spite of suggestions by multiple officials, including most recently Gov. Phil Murphy. Read more: Just Close Schools, Murphy Says To Toms River, Districts With Aid Cuts

A state aid loan — if the Department of Education approves it — brings with it a state monitor to look at the district's finances. The monitor, which the district would pay for, would be in place for 10 years or until the loan was paid off, Citta said.

"These aid cuts impact students," board member Anna Polozzo said. "It’s not about employing teachers, it’s about whether or not our children are receiving instruction in reasonable class sizes with the supports that they need."

Board member Melissa Morrison said the state aid cuts to not only Toms River Regional but more than 140 other districts raise questions about the future of public education in New Jersey.

"School districts exist for children to be able to learn life skills and become educated so they can become resourceful, productive responsible citizens in society," she said. "What game are we playing? In the end the children are the ones who are the casualties in their education."

"We are going to continue to take the stance that we cannot move forward without the appropriate dollars for a thorough and efficient education in Toms River," Citta told the board Wednesday. "Anything less than that is unacceptable."