NJ Education Report

The Council of New Jersey Grantmakers thinks so. Its new report, “Facing Our Future,” looks at the “tsunami” of eroding revenues throughout the state and the inability of the government to continue to fund a complex and expensive municipal and school infrastructure. The report projects that “our projected gaps are so large that any future debate is likely to include the loss of entire programs, and may equate to the elimination or transformation of nearly 20 percent of all current services.”

Regarding our public school system, the Council’s primary recommendation is moving from the excesses of local control to the county administration of school districts. The model for this is Fairfax, Virginia. Here’s the education highlights from the report. Also, check out NJ Spotlight’s analysis.

• The complex layers of state, county, municipal governments and school districts that have evolved from the 19th century can no longer deliver the 21st century services we expect, especially as the gaps between the costs of those services and the revenues to pay for them grows ever wider.

• New Jersey’s school districts depend on property taxes to provide 53.5 percent of their revenue, with an additional 31.5 percent from state aid.

• School district budgets and funding remain considerably more complex than municipal and county budgets – both in terms of size and in terms of the significant amount of state revenue they receive. As shown earlier in Figure 10 (see Section 3), aggregate school district spending represents 39.5 percent of all government spending in New Jersey. This is a slight decrease from the prior year’s 40 percent. Therefore, it is especially important to understand the school district budget environment. If New Jersey’s school districts are to maintain current levels of service delivery, they will need an additional $3.3 billion over the next six years.

• Implementing county administration of school districts: Recommended by the New Jersey Committee on Shared Services and Government Consolidation, this change consolidates certain school governance functions at the county level – enabling reduction of redundancies without affecting the delivery of academic services. Countywide school districts operate in many states. Because of the many similarities to New Jersey, we selectedthe operation in Fairfax County, Virginia for our options review.