67 Jobs Cut As South Brunswick District Adopts 2024-25 School Budget

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ – On Tuesday, the South Brunswick School District adopted the 2024-25 school budget, which came with significant losses of staff and programming.

The district will be cutting 67 positions which include teachers and assistant principals.

The $170 million budget includes a general fund of $153 million, special revenue fund of $10 million, and $6.8 million in debt service.

For the 2024-25 school year, the district was allotted 14.2 million in state aid was a reduction of $1.4 million from the previous year.

The reduction has caused a massive staffing impact.

The district adopted $170 million budget

“I feel horrible for our teachers and staff. I feel horrible for our administrators for delivering the news,” Feder said during the meeting.

The district will lose 40 teaching staff (k-12); one guidance counselor who will be retiring and the district will not fill the position; five assistant principal and supervisor positions; six secretary positions; one nurse; eight paraprofessionals; and six custodial and maintenance positions.

Here are the programming impacts of the reduced budget:

• The class sizes will be bigger
• The G&T program for the elementary school has been eliminated
• No instructional and para support staff
• No high school course flexibility
• Reduced Security
• Less support for discipline and HIB
• Reduced coaches and advisors
• Increase in lunch cost

There is also a fee increase for the 2024-25 school year. This means the Pay to Play program will see an increase of 20 percent per activity. AP testing will increase from $105 to $130.

Middle School music bus will increase from $175 to $200; parking fees will go up to $80 a year; late bus fees will be $50 per season or $100 annually; and a new subscription for busing service now stands at $720.

More than 60 school districts will see funding cuts in double-digit percentages, according to proposed district-by-district funding data released by the state in February.

Another 200-plus school districts are poised to see aid increases in the double-digit percentages.

During his annual budget address to legislators, Gov. Phil Murphy said the proposed $55.9 billion spending plan included $11.7 billion for public school funding that he said fully funds the school funding formula for the first time.

That formula was part of the School Funding Reform Act of 2008, which aimed to address school funding inequities.

While many districts have received additional funding, more than 200 have seen aid cuts yearly since 2018, as a result of the revision to the SFRA known as S2 that was signed into law by Murphy. (S2 got its start in 2017, when then-Gov. Chris Christie and then-Senate President Stephen Sweeney made a deal that swapped the increase in the gasoline tax Christie wanted for cuts in state aid to districts that had been receiving adjustment aid.)

The 2024-25 fiscal year is supposed to be the last year of S2 and its cuts.

However, the district still has eyes on Trenton, where two bills in the State Senate could pump additional funding into schools. The Assembly approved both measures in mid-April.

One bill in the State Senate sponsored by Sen. Andrew Zwicker, would allow districts facing aid reductions, such as South Brunswick, to receive grants worth two-thirds of that cut funding.

Districts receiving those grants wouldn’t be allowed to cut staff in most cases.

The bill will also allow districts to increase the $2 percent tax cap.

The other state bill would allow districts to submit spending plans after the state enacts its budget for the 2025 fiscal year, which begins in July. That would give the district some time to tinker with its budget.

Feder said district officials are directly working with legislators and districts that are in a similar situation. The district has also appealed to the community to advocate through letters and phone calls to lawmakers.

(In the next few days, Patch will delve more into the impacts and cuts and what to expect in the coming year.)