State Aid Increase Doubles for Tri-boro School Districts

While Gov. Chris Christie's administration announced Tuesday it would be doubling the amount of increased aid announced in February for all three tri-boro school districts, district officials said that even with the additional aid, the amount of state funding is still far from where it was before tremendous cuts in 2010.

will be receiving an additional $322,824, according to information sent by the governor's office, on top of the $322,824 increase over the governor's budgeted $557,186 in 2010-2011. The district was slated to receive a total of $880,010 in aid for 2011-2012, but will now be receiving $1,202,834.

"We're still far short from where we were," said Kinnelon Public Schools Business Administrator Alice Robinson.

Robinson said that before the cuts, the district had received $2.2 million. She also said that she is unable to comment on what the additional money could be used for because she had not yet received notification of the additional aid, but that in previous years, when the district had received additional aid mid-year, it was required to be used as tax relief.

will receive an additional $193,792 to the increase over the 2010-2011 budgeted allocation of $1,466,184. The total amount of state aid for this year for Butler Public Schools will be $1,853,769. Business Administrator Debra Naley-Minenna was unavailable for comment.

will receive an additional $164,176, matching the increase that was announced in February. The increase was that over the 2010-2011 budgeted allocation of $1,475,351, bringing the total amount of state aid for this year for Bloomingdale Public Schools to $1,803,702.

Bloomingdale Public Schools Business Administrator George Hagl also said he had not yet been notified of the increase, but that while the additional aid will be beneficial to the district, the total amount of aid is still less than two years ago.

"One hundred and sixty four thousand (dollars) would obviously help, but it would still not be the full amount that we had gotten in previous years," he said.

The increase in aid came as part of an $850-million allocation plan for the 2012 fiscal year budget that was announced by Gov. Chris Christie’s administration on Tuesday. The total is made up of three different parts: an initial $250 million that was initially authorized in increased school aid, an additional $150 million for non-Abbot districts, and $450 million to Abbot districts, which is slightly more than half of the total aid.

That $450 million is being distributed amongst 31 districts. That additional funding, according to a release by the Christie administration, fully funds the Abbot districts under the School Funding Reform Act formula.

“This year, New Jersey increased state aid to school districts by $850 million over last year, restoring every dollar of the cuts we were forced to make last year and increasing aid by an additional $30 million,” Christie said in the release.

The aid comes more than a year after the administration made aid cuts to all districts, which were announced on St. Patrick’s Day 2010. In many cases, the additional aid announced on Tuesday doubled the amount that was initially designated for non-Abbot districts.