On Thursday, Jan. 16, Dr. Timothy Purnell, executive director and CEO of the New Jersey School Boards Association, offered comments on the School Funding Reform Act at a public meeting hosted by the New Jersey Department of Education in Blackwood.
The meeting was one of four held by the NJDOE as part of an outreach effort to solicit public comment on the SFRA. As has been previously reported in School Board Notes, both the Murphy administration and the Legislature are currently undergoing attempts to revise the SFRA to better meet the needs of districts and students.
In his remarks, Purnell touched on several key areas of the NJSBA’s position on school funding. First and foremost, he lauded the state for fully funding the SFRA in fiscal year 2025 for the first time and encouraged the state to continue to meet this minimum standard even if changes to the formula are made.
Among other areas of Purnell’s testimony was a focus on flexibility in the tax levy cap. While the current 2% levy cap exists in statute outside of the SFRA, they are practically intertwined. The hard 2% cap and its limited list of exemptions have severely constrained the ability of many school districts to raise what the SFRA dictates under its local fair share provisions, Purnell said. He offered ways in which the cap may be loosened without causing a significant burden on local taxpayers.
Predictability in state aid is an issue that affects districts across the state. In his comments, Purnell offered several suggestions on ways to improve predictability. One option is to move to multi-year averages of income and equalized valuation when calculating a district’s local fair share, which would mitigate the year-over-year swings experienced by districts due to fluctuating property values. Alternatively, guardrails could be enacted to limit potential decreases in a district’s state aid figure from one year to the next.
On special education funding, Purnell recommended that the state move away from its census-based funding model, in which each district in the state is assumed to have the same percentage of classified students. Rather, aid should be provided based on a district’s actual special education enrollment, while a system that accounts for disparities in costs associated with a student’s particular disability should also be explored. Further, Purnell echoed the NJSBA’s position that the state must fully fund extraordinary special education aid according to the thresholds set in statute, and once that obligation is met, the Legislature should increase reimbursement levels to absorb a greater percentage of districts’ special education costs.
Transportation costs have outpaced inflation in recent years, and Purnell echoed the concerns of the testimony of board members who pushed for transportation costs to be added to the list of exemptions that fall outside of the hard tax levy cap. Alternatively, the state could appropriately reimburse districts for rising transportation costs rather than maintain stagnant funding.
Finally, Purnell touched on the need for increased transparency in the state aid process. He reiterated the NJSBA’s position that the aid formula should be “predictable, transparent and capable of being recalculated at the local district level.”
In addition to Purnell’s comments at the Blackwood hearing, the NJSBA also submitted written testimony.
