School administrators throughout the state were holding their collective breath leading up to Gov. Christie’s 2015 budget address last week.
“Where would state aid stand?” was the question on everyone’s mind. If state aid went down considerably, how hard would it hit the school district’s bottom line?
Come last week, though, these same administrators were able to breathe a sigh of relief when Christie announced that his budget proposal would actually increase state aid to schools and, more importantly, wouldn’t reduce aid to any school district.
Overall, Christie’s budget provides for an $811 million increase in educational funding, although only $4.6 million of that will go to school aid. The rest is earmarked for debt, pension and health care.
The good news for school districts like ours, which doesn’t receive the bulk of state aid to public schools anyway, is that we will not lose any state aid from last year. True, we won’t be seeing an increase, but at least we won’t lose money.
While we certainly could have used more help from the Garden State, it’s comforting to know we won’t have to kick in more money out of our already thin pockets.
So two thumbs up to Christie for paying attention to one of the most important aspects of life here in New Jersey — our public schools.
