This pretty much sums up what the Education Law Center sees of needy, even desperate, districts in the rest of New Jersey.

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This is b******t.

First of all, that's not from "Rutgers." It's from the Education Law Center, which has no formal connection to Rutgers.

The Education Law Center is an entity that gets a third of its budget from the NJEA and does whatever the NJEA wants it to do. It isn't an independent group at all.

Even if the ELC were an independent group and even if it were from Rutgers, so what? People from a university can be biased and/or wrong.


Second, you do not understand SFRA based on your description of what that report even says.

All that report points out is that Jersey City is below SFRA's (inflated) definition of Adequacy, a fact that no one disputes, but that normal people point out is due to Jersey City's refusal to raise its school taxes in any way proportional to its increase in wealth.

The report blames this all on the tax cap, but the JCBOE hasn't even consistently raised taxes at 2.0%, has never used banked cap, and has never considered a referendum on a higher levy.

The SFRA formula already accounts for the number of economically disadvantaged students a district has. There is no accounting for "eels," but students who are English Language Learners have an extra weight as well. Special ed classification actually doesn't have a weight in the SFRA formula (for any district.)

Because the Jersey City Public Schools have a high FRL-eligible rate and a high rate of students who are ELLs, it has a much higher Adequacy Budget per student than the average budget.

HOWEVER, SFRA isn't so simple as to solely give a district money based on its demographics because tax base is a factor in appropriate state aid too.

NJ's aid formula, like the formulas of all states, intends to give state aid in inverse proportion to a district's wealth.

Jersey City is not a "rich" district in terms of tax base, but it is an average district. Yet, despite being average in tax base, Jersey City's state aid per student is actually in the top 20 in New Jersey.

Although SFRA doesn't differentiate between residential and non-residential property, Jersey City also has about double the proportion of non-residential property of the average NJ town.

SFRA calculates a Local Fair Share for Jersey City (like it does all districts) of $370 million for 2017-18. SFRA calculates an Adequacy Budget for Jersey City of $630 million.

The difference between that $370 million that Jersey City is economically capable of paying is Equalization Aid, Special Ed aid, and Security Aid.

Jersey City, however, pays nowhere near its full Local Fair Share and it relies on Adjustment Aid to keep a low tax rate that will hit 0.42 in 2018-19, or one-third of the state average.

Although Jersey City's tax base is by far the state's largest (for 2018-19 it will be $180 million larger than the next largest district's (Hoboken's) Jersey City's tax levy is only the 16th largest in NJ, and is higher than poorer and smaller towns like Newark, Cherry Hill, West Orange, and Clifton.

Because of of the state's chronic budget problems, the state has nowhere near enough money to fairly or fully fund its many towns that have growing enrollments and shrinking tax bases.

Some districts are underaided (by the state) by $9000 per student.

Because the state cannot make the pie large enough to fully fund every district, it has to divide that pie more evenly.

http://njeducationaid.blogspot.com/20 ... enter-jersey-city-is.html

Here’s a good overview of funding issues from Rutgers Edlaw. It’s a complex issue and will need more than just a portion of abatements to fix. But it’s good to understand that we are not overfunded based on the number of disadvantaged, eel,and special needs kids we serve. http://www.edlawcenter.org/assets/fil ... _School_Funding_Case_.pdf

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New Jersey has three different ways to account for per student spending.

As another poster said, the Taxpayer Guide to Education Spending lists JC as spending $22,751 per student for
"Total Spending Per Pupil."

That amount includes pensions, construction spending, Social Security, and Post-Retirement Healthcare, plus spending from federal aid. It is the most inclusive, and most accurate, number for what any NJ school district's spending is. It is also 90% more per student than the national average.

If you are doing interstate comparisons, you should use Total Spending Per Pupil.

There is also "Budgetary Cost Per Pupil," which includes things that are directly under the BOE's control, essentially opex spending.

A district's Budgetary Cost Per Pupil is about $4000-$4500 per student less than its "Total Spending Per Pupil." JC's Budgetary Cost Per Pupil is $18,154 per student.

The state average for Budgetary Cost Per Pupil is about $15,000 per student.

HOWEVER, is is a third, most exclusive, number for spending that is used in the School Funding Reform Act. It only includes Equalization Aid, Sped Aid, Security Aid, the local tax levy, and Adjustment Aid. It excludes federal aid and all of the state's numerous indirect streams of aid. This third and lowest calculation of spending is called "Spending as Defined."

By this number Jersey City only spends $527,389,023 for 30,753 students, or $17,149 per student.

Since "Spending as Defined" excludes so much of Jersey City's spending, and because the School Funding Reform Act has a sky-high Adequacy budget for Jersey City, Jersey City is legally about $3100 per student below Adequacy even though its spending is well above NJ's average and dramatically above the national average.

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Reval,,,small potatoes.... & So Starts the REAL Fun 4 JC Taxpayers !

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To be fair, It's the highest cost of living in the state so teachers should be compensated more. But I'm still trying to figure out where the other money is going. $23k a student. Ok. 40 or 50 percent of that is for teachers salaries and fringe benefits. Another percentage to operate and maintain the old schools. What about the rest? Administration seemed really high, but not the highest. Extra curricular seemed really low.

Open up a voucher system and see if the private sector can do any better with 23k.

So, a quick pass at the numbers JC school costs shows we simply pay staff more than almost anyone, #98 of 103 peer districts. One must assume from years of caving in on contract negotiations. How does a union making more than almost anyone else in the whole country keep pleading poverty?

But almost as interesting is what comes as the last priority, extracurriculars, at 8|103. Surely someone has studies connections between extracurriculars and education outcomes?? Students more engaged in participation in any school activity surely engage more in the classroom.

www.state.nj.us/education/guide/2015/ is a great resource to show per student spending/local funding.

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I want to believe you... but, as we recently saw in the immediate aftermath of the mailing of initial tax estimates, seemingly most people that publicly and loudly claim they want to pay their fair share actually don't wish to do so. The utterly predictable post reval results (substantial hikes in DTJC, with moderate to significant decreases in areas like Greenville and BeLa) yielded hysterics among many DTJC homeowners complaining about being forced to to pay for the rest of city residents. Sadly, most refuse to acknowledge the basic truth that, for years now, they have been underpaying their fair share and things are now being rectified.

It is truly outstanding that some people claim (with a straight faced) that local public education is underfunded when the city per-pupil spending amounts to ~23K per year.

One of the net positives to likely come out from the reval is the heightened interest by local residents in the local budgets and expenditures.

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Because our fearless leader Fulop has a streak of not raising taxes he needs to keep, because, you know, elections.

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29,000 students
Per student spending is just shy of 23K

BTW how many students does JC have and what is our per student spending?

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The blogspot site is stateaidguy's one. He is extremely knowledgeable on this complicated topic.

Yes, over-aided, but under-funded.

For those interested, good outside perspectives are -

http://njeducationaid.blogspot.com/

and

https://civicparent.org/



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Has anyone ever run across a line item comparison of how JC spends vs other NJ districts? I have no trouble believing it's wasteful, but I have no idea in what way.

Also, Stateaidguy says we're overaided, but I don't recall hearing what our appropriate aid should be. It's surely not Zero.

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I will. I strongly believe in paying my fair share of taxes if it helps strengthen the community.

But does anyone have any idea of how to voice my opinion to anyone who can make a difference? Who can I contact? I can't believe that they would be so unwilling to put it to a city vote to raise taxes by more than the 2% to make up the shortfall. Why not at least give us a chance to vote whether we'd be willing to pay for our teachers to stay employed or not?

Yes, you can agree to having your taxes raised to cover the difference.

Does anyone know of any kind of action residents can take? I'm particularly concerned with the idea that 209 teachers "may" be laid off.

And the better part of half a billion dollars comes from other NJ taxpayers, year after year.

sounds like a plan. wth is going on?Quote:

Return to state control and cut administrative expenses.

My suggestion - send a bill to tax abated properties.
https://hudsoncountyview.com/prelimina ... dget-faces-70m-shortfall/