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Jackson Township Council calls on state to restore funding to local schools

JACKSON – Township Council members are urging state officials to restore funding to the Jackson School District.

Council President Barry Calogero, Vice President Alex Sauickie, Councilman Andrew Kern, Councilman Ken Bressi and Councilman Martin Flemming passed a resolution on April 14 and sent it off to Trenton.

The issue surrounds an ongoing loss of state aid to the Jackson School District under a 2018 law known as S-2. Beginning in the 2018-19 school year and continuing through the 2024-25 school year, Jackson will lose millions of dollars in state aid, school district administrators have said.

The Township Council has no control over the school district, but its members spoke on behalf of the community and said in the resolution that “Prior to the state of emergency (relating to the coronavirus crisis) being declared by Gov. Phil Murphy, New Jersey reallocated school funding dollars throughout the state, cutting approximately $18 million from the Jackson School District over a five-year period.”

The resolution goes on to state that “the current economic crisis has resulted in thousands of residents of Jackson losing their employment and facing the potential of foreclosure and/or eviction from their primary residence.

“Based upon this economic crisis as a result of the health emergency, the Jackson School District is in desperate need of the funding which has been previously cut prior to this health emergency; and the Township Council views the education of our children as an essential component of the quality life of Jackson, its residents and the future of its children.

“The Township Council values the teachers, coaches, lunch aides and bus drivers who instruct and take care of our children, all of whom will have their jobs and programs negatively impacted by the governor’s budget cuts,” council members wrote in the resolution.

Calogero added, “This is not a time for politics, this is a time for leadership. We beg you, governor, please, we need your help.”

The Jackson Board of Education has introduced a $152.6 million budget for the 2020-21 school year. Jackson is scheduled to have its state funding reduced from $46.47 million in 2019-20 to $42.99 million in 2020-21.

School district administrators have said the 2020-21 budget includes reductions in several areas of the district’s operation that they attributed to the ongoing reduction in state aid.

Following the introduction of the school budget, Township Council members voted to appropriate $1 million from the municipality’s surplus fund for use by the school district during the upcoming school year.

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