Umba introduces bill to pause school funding cuts

MOUNT HOLLY, N.J. – Assemblyman Brandon Umba (R-Medford) is calling for a one-year pause in school funding cuts so school districts can catch up during a time of record inflation and directly following a pandemic.

“The state is cutting millions of dollars from many individual school district budgets while prices of everything are going up for them. The one, two punch is wreaking havoc on many schools in my district, with the increase of class sizes, firing of staff and cancellation of programs,” Umba said.

“The yearly state funding cuts would be difficult in most situations but are downright untenable this year. We have to pause all school funding cuts to give the state a year to revisit the school-funding formula and allow them to catch their breath,” he continued.

Umba’s bill, A3893, would dedicate federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act to provide state school aid in the amount equal to aid provided in 2021-2022 if a school district is losing funding.

New Jersey passed S2 in 2018, which determined schools that were allegedly overfunded and underfunded based on the state’s School Funding Formula that was created in 2012. The legislation created a seven-year timeline where certain schools lost aid every year, while that aid was allocated to the schools that were deemed underfunded. Roughly one-third of school districts in the state lost funding.

Umba has also sponsored bills to create a commission in charge of developing an updated funding formula and to revitalize how special education is funded in the state. Currently, it is funded based on census data of the amount of special needs students in any given area instead of the actual amount of special needs students enrolled in a district. Many education experts believe this has caused chronic underfunding of special education.