At NJBIA’s sold-out Public Policy Forum on Friday, there was no shortage of ideas from legislative leaders on how to address affordability in New Jersey.
But one fresher approach that may be equal parts effective, and challenging, is the mandatory consolidation of smaller school districts, and their services, as a direct path to reduce property taxes.
It has been a growing a mission for Senator Vin Gopal (D-13).
It has the support of Gov. Mikie Sherrill and, in principle, the New Jersey Business & Industry Association.
“I get how politically tough of an issue this is and we’re always going to meet with people to discuss it,” Gopal told the crowd of 450 attendees at the PPF.
“But New Jersey - and as a Democrat, I’ve been saying this - has way too much government. And we can do a lot on the contracts and services side.”
Late last year, Gopal introduced bill S-4861 that aims to cut administrative costs and create a uniform curriculum for students, by requiring executive county superintendents to create plans to merge districts with fewer than 500 students who live in the district, and establish or grow regional school districts.
Gopal said he was not talking about the concept of “county-wide schools.”
But he did offer a litany of examples on Friday where significant cost savings could come into play for municipalities.
“I was talking to the superintendent in Toms River,” Gopal explained. “The amount of money they spend on extraordinary special education just in that county is over $150 million a year.
“I have another (school) district that has gone from about 550 students down to 240 over the last 10 years, yet their overall budget's gone up. Their building is about 25% full, but they don't want to touch the building because their father or grandfather went to the it….but it's not sustainable.
Gopal continued: “Why should two school districts neighboring each other have the same healthcare broker, yet they're negotiating for two sets of employees? Why do we have IT departments in all these places? Why do we have a municipal court every five minutes? These are just common-sense things.”
In recent years, the state has attempted to encourage voluntary consolidations, with help from financial incentives or funding for feasibility studies.
Yet with only limited results.
“Incentives don’t work,” said Gopal, who is chair of the Senate Education Committee.
Meanwhile, school taxes accounted for 52% of local property taxes collected in 2024, according to state data.
Approximately $15 billion in school aid in the FY26 state budget accounts for more than one quarter of all state spending approved for the current fiscal year.
NJBIA Chief Government Affairs Officer Christopher Emigholz said forced consolidations will likely be a necessity to improve New Jersey’s fiscal health.
“We strongly support forced consolidations, incentives to consolidate, forced shared services or anything that pushed New Jersey in that direction,” Emigholz said.
“Because when we talk about such steps, these are true spending cuts – not just a Band-Aid.”
NJBIA Vice President of Government Affairs Althea D. Ford added that “we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that our educational quality can improve for students. “
“Consider, for example, merging to ensure a seamless K-12 experience, instead of multiple K-8 only districts, each with their own curriculum and administrative personnel, sending students to a separate grade 9-12 district. Consolidation would allow for a more efficient allocation of resources and personnel, and there would be more continuity in the curriculum.”
Under Gopal’s bill, the Department of Education commissioner would have six months to approve or disapprove of a mandatory plan submitted by superintendents.
If it is rejected, the commissioner would be required to provide reasons and modifications to the plan. The superintendent would then have 30 days to resubmit it.
After each plan is approved, the superintendent would have to commission a feasibility study for all-purpose regional districts or limited-purpose regional districts in the plan. Those studies would be funded by the state.
Those studies would have to ensure that regionalization doesn’t result in segregation and that the consolidated school districts would need to be proximate to each other.
Gopal, however, said he is on board for voter approval of school mergers.
Gov. Sherrill ran on a platform consolidating school districts to reduce costs.
“We have more municipalities than California, and we have more school districts than municipalities, and it’s raising costs on everybody,” Sherrill said during a debate in September.
“We have some school districts that have the whole administrative costs, all of the buildings, and yet they’re not even running a K-12 school system, so we do need to merge some of these school districts, and we also need to make some county-based school districts.”
