ASSEMBLY EDUCATION COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

ASSEMBLY, No. 4563

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  DECEMBER 12, 2024

      The Assembly Education Committee reports favorably Assembly Bill No. 4563.

     This bill directs the Department of Education to create, maintain, and update a New Jersey Education Funding Portal.  The portal is to make available to school districts and members of the public the data inputs and calculations used by the department in formulating State school aid for all school districts. The portal is to allow individuals to estimate the effects of changes to enrollment, equalized property value, and district income, and show an estimate of how these changes would impact the district’s State aid.

     Under the bill, the portal is to provide user-friendly plain language to specify the:

     (1) Manner in which school district adequacy budgets and local shares are calculated;

     (2) Current methodology of measuring and weighting at-risk students and students with limited English proficiency; 

     (3)  Weights applied to students in different grade levels, as well as those applied to students enrolled in county vocational school districts;

     (4)  Current methodology used to calculate the geographic cost adjustment;

     (5)  Current methodology used to calculate the amount of State funding a school district receives to educate its special education population;

     (6)  provision of extraordinary special education aid and the cost thresholds used as the bases for reimbursement of extraordinary special education costs; and

     (7) Methodologies used to calculate security categorical aid and transportation aid. 

     The bill also requires the portal to be searchable by school district and include, for each school district:

     (1) Measurements of the budgeted local share, district income, equalized valuation, and resident enrollment;

     (2) the total amount of State school aid received in each of the most recent three school years; and

     (3) The amount received by the district for each type of categorical State aid in each of the most recent three school years.

     Finally, the bill requires the portal to include links to: relevant State laws, regulations, and guidelines pertaining to school funding;

Current budgets for each school district and, as available, proposed budgets for the upcoming school year; and the Educational Adequacy Report.