JACKSON – The Township School District is facing another state aid reduction but this year’s tentative budget will also provide some positives despite the funding cut.
Superintendent Nicole Pormilli announced prior to a presentation of the tentative budget during the latest Board of Education meeting “that once again we have been reduced with a 3% decrease in our state aid.”
Under the proposed budget, Jackson will lose an additional $680,999 in state funding for the 2026–2027 school year, bringing the school district’s total state aid allocation to $22,018,952.
This marks nine straight years of cuts. Officials noted that a short-term adjustment to rectify a long-term problem is causing the Board of Education, school administration and taxpayers to make some difficult decisions.
In recent years the school district was forced to close and sell two of its school buildings. The first was the Sylvia Rosenauer Elementary School and a year later in 2025, Christa McAuliffe Middle School was closed and sold.
Enrollment Changing
School District Business Administrator/Board Secretary Daniel Baginski said during the budget presentation that “we take a close look at what enrollment is doing, where it is growing and where we need to allocate our resources for the next year.”
“One of the big drivers of the budget is enrollment,” he added while showing a slide of kindergarten through 12th grade student enrollment. During the 2017-2018 school year the department had 8,190 public school students and 675 non-public school students compared to the current 2025-2026 school year with 6,510 public school students and 7,009 non-public school students.
The projected total for the 2026-2027 school year was estimated at 6,345 public school students and 8,534 non-public school students. Baginski said the public-school enrollment has seen “a slight decrease, every year over these 10 years with a total that led to 22.52% decrease over that 10-year period.”
“When you look at the growth of the non-public school students it is really remarkable. This past school year, the number of non-public students in Jackson Township eclipsed the number of public-school students for the first time,” he said.
Baginski said “when you put the figure of projected non-public school students together it is over 14,000 school-age children residing in Jackson and that non-public school population in the 10-year period has grown 1,164%.”
“This is something unique to Jackson. When you talk to other districts, even districts that are not that far away, with the exception of Lakewood and starting with Toms River no one can relate to this. It is a unique circumstance,” he noted.
Baginski added another driver in this is the rising growth of “economically disadvantaged students, 48% of our school student population is identified as economically disadvantaged which comes with its own challenges in terms of budgeting.”
Jackson is one of 96 large kindergarten-through-12th grade districts and out of those districts, Baginski said Jackson had “the fourth lowest budgetary cost per pupil in the state.”
Tax Impact
The presentation closed noting a total tax levy of $124,348,607. Baginski said this increased by $9,281,888. “This increase is due to health care costs and eligibility for the health benefit cap waiver.”
For a homeowner with the average property assessment in Jackson ($654,839) for 2026-2027, the school taxes would increase $305 a year or $25.42 a month.
He remarked that “this budget is not all doom and gloom and I want to make clear that this district is moving forward. This district has done great things and continues to do great things. This budget includes a 25% increase to all school budgets which is direct resources to students and staff. It includes new teaching resources for an enhanced social studies curriculum in grades 7-12.”
It also includes plans “to add a flexible learning academy at the high school and the replacement of Mac Labs for all instructional classrooms and JTV studios and an interscholastic middle school volleyball program for boys and girls next year.”
This along with “allocations to address facility issues through capital and maintenance reserves to address the highest priority needs in the district,” Baginski noted.
Jackson, a community that has approximately 60,000 plus residents isn’t alone in facing difficult financial realities which have impacted area school districts such as neighboring Plumsted Township. Toms River, Brick and Lacey townships have also been hit hard since the S2 state aid formula was implemented during former Governor Phil Murphy’s administration.
Although Jackson lost state aid, Ocean County schools in general received $9.7 million more than last year, to a total of about $215 million, according to the New Jersey Department of Education. Monmouth County schools will receive around $3.1 million more in state aid which represents a total of $316.6 million for the next school year.
