JACKSON – “This is not the budget we wanted. In fact, it is heartbreaking,” Superintendent Nicole Pormilli said, describing the current status of the school district’s spending plan.
The school district’s war with the state to get more aid is pending but the Board had to move forward with its budget despite voting it down.
Pormilli said, “there have been no changes to the budget that was presented, which means that the 2024-2025 budget will move forward as presented.”
“No matter how much our circumstances, costs and student needs have changed over the past seven years and no matter how responsibly we have acted to keep this district afloat during the overwhelming loss of state aid, we were required to present a balanced budget and we did that,” she added.
“To accomplish this ‘Mission Impossible,’ we worked hard to preserve our programs and activities for our students. But in order to do that, we needed to make big sacrifices. The most significant of these sacrifices are the closing of the Rosenauer Elementary School and the loss of 70 positions we could not afford to lose without significantly impacting the operation of a district this large and the supports we need to provide for our students,” she noted.
The state had cut aid to the district year over year since 2018. As a result, many local districts had to cut staff. Coming into the 2024-25 school year, Jackson was facing an $18 million hole.
A budget was crafted that made cuts and raised taxes 9.9 percent to fill that hole. However, the Board of Education voted it down. State Monitor Carole Knopp-Morris overrode the Board of Education’s unanimous decision at the Board’s July 17 meeting to reject the budget. This means the cuts, reductions and changes went through
On July 24, a brief special meeting was held in order to vote on the personnel items from the agenda and addendum that were administratively removed from the July 17 agenda until the board received her decision.
Morris ultimately overrode the board’s decision and the board had to act on the personnel items it had removed. Board of Education President Giuseppe Palmeri said the board authorized the district attorney to take appropriate legal action to compel the Department of Education to assist the district to ensure it can provide a thorough and efficient education.
Toms River Schools are also suing the state over the losses. The state has fired back.
The NJDOE stated the two budgets “include additional state support provided through the Stabilized School Budget Aid Grant Program and tax flexibility. This action is necessary because the Toms River Regional School District Board of Education and the Jackson Township School District Board of Education both failed to adopt their respective final budgets by the extended deadline of July 22.”
“While the Department does not underestimate the difficulty of these decisions – budget development and adoption is a complex, multi-faceted, even emotional process, given the importance of school programs to our students and communities – we also fully expect New Jersey’s world class district leaders to rise to that challenge. The difficulty of these decisions does not excuse any failure by district leaders or local boards of education to comply with one of their most critical statutory obligations to successfully oversee a public school system,” the NJDOE statement added.
“It saddens me that the district will have to endure these cuts, but it is necessary that we begin moving forward. Together we need to plan and prepare for our students returning in September. We also need to move forward by strategically planning for the future, so we can continue to provide the best possible education to our students,” Pormilli said.
The Board’s tentative budget presented on June 26 included the elimination of courtesy busing throughout the district. New funds were appropriated to Jackson School District in the state budget in the amount of $2.5 million.
“We are the only school in Ocean County to receive this appropriation, made just prior to the state budget being approved,” Pormilli said. “We intend to use these funds to keep courtesy busing in in place for 2024-2025 school year.”
Mayor Michael Reina also expressed his view about the situation. He said to The Jackson Times, “I had a brief and frustrating conversation with the State Education Commissioner. I had asked him to explain how the statement that the S-2 formula after seven years of draconian cuts has ‘fully funded’ the Jackson school district.”
“His answer was scripted and full of holes when he said, ‘you are now where you need to be.’ In short, Jackson has been targeted politically by the Murphy Administration. There is no question in my mind how anyone in Trenton can look any Jackson child in the eye and say ‘you are now whole’ when they stripped away academia, athletic and after school programs the way we now have to from our children,” the mayor added.
Reina added, “on top of all this they send a monitor who has no connection and obviously no compassion towards our district by following Trenton’s orders to overturn the Jackson BOE in every possible way. Being told to raise taxes 9.9% on all of Jackson residents while other districts are fully funded is a travesty and a disgrace.”
