April 11, 2023
Dear constituent,
Thank you for your prior email about your concerns over school funding. I wanted to update you on the most recent action in Trenton.
S3732/A5328, which I co-sponsored and voted for, provides over $103 million in additional school aid. The bill passed both houses of the Legislature and was signed by the Governor. It will restore 66 percent of this year’s proposed school budget cuts.
This means that the following school districts in the 12th Legislative District will have restored the following amounts:
- Old Bridge $1,325,330
- Chesterfield 62,457
- Freehold Regional 4,464,057
- Manalapan – Englishtown 797,983
- Millstone 80,399
- Upper Freehold Regional 232,290
- Jackson 4,149,911
- Plumsted 627,931
While this legislation is good news, it does not solve the underlying problem of the faulty school funding formula established by S2. It also does not restore all of the 2023-2024 budget cuts, so districts will still have to make hard program and personnel decisions.
Without an overhaul of the formula, we will be back in this same situation in the next school budget year.
Much more needs to be done, which is why I have sponsored legislation that:
- Creates a new funding formula;
- Holds school districts harmless from any cuts for a year so that a new formula can be implemented; and
- Provides full funding for nonpublic school busing for districts with extraordinary cost increases.
I look forward to working with other legislators in a bipartisan manner to begin reforming the current school funding disaster. Our students and taxpayers deserve nothing less.
As developments occur, I will report back to you.
Sincerely,
/s/ Alex Sauickie
Alex Sauickie
Assemblyman, 12th District
For more information, visit AssemblymanAlex.com.
This e-mail message was sent to you (Redacted for Privacy) in response to your initial e-mail message sent to the Office of Assemblyman Alex Sauickie ([email protected]) regarding school funding (Redacted for Privacy).