Bill Text: NJ A2188 | 2014-2015 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Provides additional State school aid to certain districts with expenditures below districts' adequacy threshold.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2014-01-16 - Introduced, Referred to Assembly Education Committee [A2188 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2014-A2188-Introduced.html
Sponsored by:
Assemblyman TROY SINGLETON
District 7 (Burlington)
SYNOPSIS
Provides additional State school aid to certain districts with expenditures below districts' adequacy threshold.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act concerning State school aid for certain school districts and supplementing P.L.2007, c.260 (C.18A:7F-43 et al.).
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. a. Under adequacy aid for a school district, other than a county vocational school district, for which UAP is greater than 0.10 shall be calculated as follows:
UAA = UAM x UAR
where
UAM = PreBudSpend - ProjSpend;
UAR = (UAP - 0.10) x 0.60;
PreBudSpend is the sum of the school district's general fund tax levy, equalization aid, special education categorical aid, security categorical aid, and adjustment aid in the prebudget year;
ProjSpend is the sum of the school district's equalization aid, special education categorical aid, and security categorical aid as calculated for the budget year prior to the application of the State aid growth limit pursuant to section 5 of P.L.2007, c.260 (C.18A:7F-47); and
UAP is the quotient obtained by dividing UAM by ProjSpend.
b. A school district, other than a county vocational school district, for which UAP is greater than 0.10, shall receive under adequacy aid equal to the lesser of the amount calculated pursuant to subsection a. of this section or $500,000 if, based on the most recent year of audited expenditure data reported in the Taxpayers' Guide to Education Spending:
(1) the district ranks within the top 25% of all school districts with respect to its expenditures on classroom instruction as a percent of total budgetary costs; or
(2) the district ranks within the top 50% of all school districts with respect to its expenditures on support services as a percent of total budgetary costs.
2. This act shall take effect immediately and shall first apply to the first full school year beginning after the effective date.
STATEMENT
The fiscal year 2013-2014 appropriations act included language that provided additional State school aid to school districts, other than county vocational school districts, with projected spending for the 2013-2014 school year that was below the district's prior year's "adequacy" level by more than 10 percent. This bill would make this new aid category, under adequacy aid, permanent, with two modifications.
First, in order to receive under adequacy aid, in addition to having projected spending more than 10 percent below the prior year's adequacy level, the district must target its expenditures towards classroom instruction or support services. Specifically, a district must rank among the top 25 percent of districts with respect to the share of its expenditures that are allocated to classroom instruction, or among the top 50 percent of districts with respect to the share of its expenditures that are spent on support services.
Second, for most districts that meet these more stringent criteria, this bill increases the amount of under adequacy aid that the district would receive. Under the appropriations act, a district's under adequacy aid was based on the amount by which the district's spending was below adequacy, in excess of 10 percent, multiplied by 0.20. This bill increases the multiplier to 0.60, effectively tripling the aid that an eligible district would receive relative to the appropriations act, assuming that the district is not affected by the $500,000 limit on the amount of aid awarded.
