Sen. Vin Gopal (D-11) is reportedly preparing a bill that could mandate some of New Jersey’s school districts to share services or merge to reduce education costs and property taxes.
And NJBIA says it’s very much a discussion worth having, especially as it could also improve the quality of New Jersey’s education.
“While a bill hasn’t been posted as of yet, we certainly welcome the principle of it,” said NJBIA Vice President of Government Affairs Althea D. Ford.
“We know the reasons why consolidation policies are often difficult to get over the hump. But we also know why the attempts to make consolidating and shared services a reality keep coming back – because New Jersey desperately needs them to reduce costs and taxes.”
In a recent interview with New Jersey Monitor, Gopal, who serves as chair of the Senate Education Committee, said efforts to incentivize such school mergers have not really taken root – which is why he is considering a bill that would mandate it.
“We’re going to look toward seeing what we can do to mandate regionalization and shared services to see if we can keep the great quality of education that New Jersey has but, at the same time, lower costs for taxpayers and save money,” Gopal said. “We can’t operate 600 individual school districts anymore.
“This is the start of a conversation that I think desperately needs to happen in New Jersey. Everybody loves the idea of consolidation. They just don’t want it in their backyard,” he said.
NJBIA has historically been a strong advocate for shared services and consolidation in local government and schools to reduce New Jersey’s sky-high property tax burden for residents and businesses.
“And we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that our educational quality can improve for students,” Ford said. “Consider, for example, the merging of K-12 through schools, instead of multiple K-8 districts sending students to a 9-12 district. Resources would improve and there would be more of a consistency in what is being taught.”
The association had championed many of the ideas in a series of fiscal reforms proposed in the Path to Progress platform offered by former Senate President and current gubernatorial candidate Steve Sweeney.
One such bill (S-3756) derived from Path to Progress, which was signed into law in 2020, required K-8 school districts to coordinate their school calendars and curriculum with the high schools they send their graduates to.
At the time, NJBIA Chief Government Affairs Officer Christopher Emigholz called it “a long overdue, commonsense measure” that could save money by eliminating duplication.
But that was something of a baby step reform compared to what might be expected in Gopal’s legislation.
Gopal, however, is insisting that lawmakers would work with school districts to ensure they’re involved in regionalization decisions.
“The bottom line is New Jersey has nearly 600 public school districts with their own bureaucracies and employees,” Ford said. “We have the highest property taxes in the nation. And we have districts who have by and large been reluctant to share services.
“If there’s a mechanism to ensure that regional consolidation is taking place in education, without sacrificing the quality of our education system, it’s worth taking a look at. New Jersey needs to bring property taxes under control and reforms like these can improve our fiscal health and relieve some of the burden on our residents and businesses.”
Gopal said he hopes to introduce his legislation this fall.
