Sauickie: Your Children’s Schools Are Being Destroyed, and It’s By Design

New CJN contributor Assemblyman Alex Sauickie lends his perspective on the threat our schools face from Gov. Murphy's cuts.

As I took my place in the NJ General Assembly almost two years ago, my plan was to look for ways to make our state more affordable. I also planned to work with my colleagues across the aisle to get common sense things done and have since earned a reputation for doing so. 

The need to focus on education, however, became strikingly apparent just a few months after I assumed office. That’s when Governor Murphy announced even higher than expected cuts in state aid to school districts I represent. 

As I dug into this problem and its history, I found out that the current state school funding formula is not only detrimental to numerous school districts in counties like Monmouth and Ocean, but was clearly implemented to get those very results.

In 2018, then Senate President Steve Sweeney, who recently announced plans to run for governor, sponsored Senate Bill #2 (S2). The propaganda behind S2, which the current governor signed into law, was to create a new, “fairer” public school funding formula. Despite numerous requests from elected officials, and even a lawsuit by a consortium of school districts (which they won), few details have ever been shared. Yet S2 is what determines state aid for each school district. 

Assemblyman Alex Sauickie delivers remarks on the Assembly floor. (Credit: Assembly Republican Office).

Let’s also be clear about state aid to schools. “State aid” is effectively the proportion of your income tax dollars, that you already paid to the state, coming back to your children’s school districts. The problem with S2 is that rather than your tax dollars equitably going to your respective school district, S2 sends your money elsewhere. 

For example, in the most recent year of reporting, the residents of Jackson Township collectively paid $68 million in income tax. Of that, for the 2024-2025 school year, about $23 million came back from the Murphy administration to Jackson’s school children. That’s roughly one-third. Where did the rest go?

Well, if you thought that only one-third coming back was bad, wait until you hear this. Newark, which has roughly five times the population of Jackson, paid $44 million in income taxes versus Jackson’s $68 million. This year the Newark City School District is getting $1.25 BILLION in state aid. That’s where the rest of Jackson’s income taxes went. 

It’s also where the income taxes of the residents of Toms River, Brick, Lacey, Plumsted, Old Bridge, Long Branch, Asbury Park, Neptune Township, and almost 140 total school districts went as well. In fact, those 140 school districts collectively lost $104 million in state aid this year, while Newark received an additional $100 million this year alone, and for the second year in a row. 

So again, where did the balance of your income taxes go that didn’t go to your children’s schools? Almost dollar for dollar it went to Newark.

Newark now gets over $30,000 per student in state aid while Jackson gets $3,500, Brick $2,800, and Toms River, less than $2,000 per student. And if you hear the current administration say, well, it’s because those districts had major decreases in student enrollment, don’t buy it. 

In the last seven years, Toms River had a student enrollment decrease of 9%, but its state aid over the same period went down 59%. This doesn’t even consider the district’s increases in special education students and multi-language learner (MLL) needs, which like other districts mentioned, are up double and triple percentage points and require special teachers and smaller classes. 

The argument, of course, is that districts like Newark’s need extra funding to get the necessary results for their students. Over the past year, the metrics that show success unfortunately said otherwise. In Newark, 73% of students in grades 3-8 can’t read at their respective grade levels, including 90% of third graders who can’t read at third grade level. Clearly, throwing money at the problem isn’t working. 

Everyone wants to see the students of Newark do well. This shouldn’t be political. All students deserve the best education possible regardless of where they live. However, it becomes more obvious that Newark has a problem that needs to be addressed differently when teachers who live in my legislative district, but work in Newark, report a basement full of iPads for which money “had” to be spent but aren’t being used. 

In June, the Newark school district announced it was spending $12 million on a state-of-the-art security system. It’s not that the district didn’t have security, but it’s so cash-heavy with your money that it can afford the latest and greatest, while your children’s school districts are losing teachers, AP classes, sports teams, music and arts, clubs, and even entire schools. 

Even more recently, it was reported that the Newark Superintendent, with approval from the Newark Board of Education, threw a staff party costing $43,000. That money was spent in one day and would have restored the already cut Jackson boys’ hockey team, girls’ gymnastics team, and all the clubs in Plumsted for the ENTIRE school year. You can’t make this up.

What’s worse is this administration could have fixed this problem in any of the last seven years. An advantage of having the governorship and majorities in both the Senate and Assembly is having the power to change things with few roadblocks. I’ve tried to convince my colleagues to help these school districts on more than one occasion.

This administration decided not to do it because this funding formula was doing exactly what they intended it to do. It’s funneling your tax dollars to districts whose voters primarily support the current administration, while simultaneously destroying the districts of school children whose parents didn’t. Yup, it’s political. And remember, this is coming from the guy who often works across the aisle.

If you’re still not convinced that this was all by design, consider this. Out of the 21 counties in New Jersey, this year all but three received net increases in state aid. The three to see decreases, in order, were Ocean, Monmouth, and Cape May counties. They also happen to be three of the counties that least voted for this current administration. 

School children’s education should not be political. Unfortunately, this administration made it exactly that, and every resident should remember that when voting for governor and your local legislators next year.

____________________________________________

Alex Sauickie is a life-long Jackson resident who represents his hometown and 12 other towns in the State Assembly. Follow him on Facebook (/AssemblymanAlex) and on Instagram (@AssemblymanAlex) or visit his website at AssemblymanAlex.com.