Governor Christie will be giving his annual budget address today at 2:00, at which time he will outline his priorities for the upcoming fiscal year. A couple of days after his address our Local and Regional School Districts will be provided with their projected state aid for the 2017-2018 school year. As I hope you are aware, there has been a huge effort by members of our community to demand that our schools are finally fairly funded as mandated by School Funding Reform Act. The projected state aid figures are not the end of the battle for Fair Funding and it is vitally important that we all stay engaged throughout the state’s budget negotiation process up until the final budget is passed in late June. Please go to the Fair Funding Action Committee’s Facebook page and follow the guidance on how your voice can be heard on this issue that is so important for our town.
I am really proud of the Swedesboro Borough Council for standing up in support of Fair Funding for our severely underfunded School Districts. In a unanimous vote, Joanna Gahrs, David Flaherty, George Weeks, Alice O’Blennis, Diane Hale and Sam Casella all emphatically said YES to adopt a Resolution supporting a bi-partisan plan to use the proven School Funding Reform Act formula to allocate funds more equitably to School Districts around the state. Our Districts are receiving less than 50% of what the formula mandates. As an example of what this means to us as taxpayers; if the SFRA was followed over the last 10 years Kingsway Regional would have received $32.9 million in additional state aid. That is almost $33 million that we would not have had to raise in taxes over that time period. This gross unfairness has got to end now, so I was proud to sign the Resolution and send it to Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto and demand that he allows a vote on the plan that has almost unanimous bi-partisan support in the NJ Senate.
In regards to the School Funding Resolution I think Councilman Sam Casella said it best (I paraphrase); “This is not a Democrat or Republican issue, this is about getting the fair funding our School Districts need to provide a quality education for our children and relieving the unfair burden the underfunding places on our taxpayers”. Well said Sam.
Please go to the Fair Funding Action Committee’s Facebook page and sign the petition demanding that we get our fair share. Get educated on the issue and please get involved. We need everyone engaged if we want to get our voices heard in Trenton.
Mayor Tom Fromm