Bill Text: NJ A4563 | 2024-2025 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Directs DOE to create New Jersey Education Funding Portal to make available to school districts and public State school aid information.
Spectrum: Slight Partisan Bill (Democrat 3-1)
Status: (Introduced) 2024-06-13 - Introduced, Referred to Assembly Education Committee [A4563 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2024-A4563-Introduced.html
Sponsored by:
Assemblyman ROY FREIMAN
District 16 (Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex and Somerset)
SYNOPSIS
Directs DOE to create New Jersey Education Funding Portal to make available to school districts and public State school aid information.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act concerning transparency of school funding and supplementing P.L.2007, c.260.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. a. The Department of Education shall create, maintain, and update, as appropriate, a New Jersey Education Funding Portal on the department's Internet website. The portal shall 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 under the "School Funding Reform Act of 2008," P.L.2007, c.260 (C.18A:7F-43 et al.) and P.L.2018, c.67 (C.18A:7F-67 et al.). The portal shall allow individuals to adjust certain data inputs for a school district, including enrollment, equalized property values, and district income, and show an estimate of how these changes would impact the district's State aid.
b. The portal shall 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.
c. The portal shall be searchable by school district and shall 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.
d. The portal shall include links to:
(1) relevant State laws, regulations, and guidelines pertaining to school funding;
(2) current budgets for each school district and, as available, proposed budgets for the upcoming school year; and
(3) the Educational Adequacy Report issued by the commissioner pursuant to section 4 of P.L.2007, c.260, s.3 (C.18A:7F-46).
2. This act shall take effect on the first day of the fourth month next following the date of enactment.
STATEMENT
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 and allow individuals to estimate the effects of changes to enrollment, equalized property value.
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.
