the proposed budget also promised a historic investment to New Jersey's public schools that if approved by the legislature would fully fund the school funding formula for the first time in State history increasing Aid by more than $900 million making it the final payment in a seven-year rampup plan Governor Murphy signed near the beginning of his time in office but how many schools end up receiving aid and how much they'll get that'll depend on how the administration calculates that formula for more joined by our education and child welfare writer Hannah Gross Hannah good to have you on the set today so let's just start off big picture what's in this budget for New Jersey schools yeah so there's going to be about a 98 million increase in school funding which brings the total to about 11.7 billion which is a record high for the state and that's looking at the school funding formula but there's also going to be money um for other aspects of Education whether that's School meals expanding access to preschool um or a number of other initiatives there's been a lot of talk since this school funding formula was reformed there have been uh a good number of schools that have gotten the amount of Aid that they were uh needed and a lot of schools that also have not so who stands to gain and who stands to lose do we know yet so my understanding now is that it's going to be about 140 districts that are going to be seeing Cuts in the funding that they receive but now that we're in the last year were fully funding the formula it looks like this would be the last year that districts would be seeing Cuts based on the formula they could still see cuts for other reasons such as changes in enrollment so I'm thinking about places like Toms River and East Brunswick places that we've covered quite a bit why is it if the state is saying they're putting in more money that they're actually getting less Aid yeah so the school funding formula has like an adequacy budget which is the amount of money that's required for a thorough and efficient education according to the law and so some districts kind of were getting more money than is needed for a thorough and efficient education and some were getting less so this is trying to equalize that Governor uh Murphy yesterday also hitting on universal prek this is something that he's touted since taking office more money for that yes and so more seats for preschool students yeah more money for preschool and part of that will go to expanding it so adding about a thousand more seats so far the Administration has added a little bit over 14,000 uh this of course has to go for approval with the legislature what are we up against uh what's the legislature and the governor up against when looking at all of these numbers and having the money to make this type of investment yeah I mean it seems like there's not a consensus among legislators about how to proceed with the school funding formula some are saying that now we're reaching full funding it's time to take another look look at a formula that hasn't been Revisited in about 10 years and some are saying you know what we're reaching the end of the governor's Administration maybe we should just wait until the next Governor takes office what else did he lay out because there are a lot of other programs uh when we're talking about schools it's a lot of uh funding that goes into a lot of different pots so what other programs would stand to get money yeah so cover all kids is expected to get some money and that would be increasing health care for children there's also money to help with the teacher shortage so money for stiens for student teachers and also loan Redemption for some teachers those are another yeah what about um there's been talk of uh making Universal free School meals in terms of breakfast and lunch did the governor hit on that at all yeah they are moving to provide more students with universal free lunch and they're also going to be providing school lunch in the summer devil of course is in the details and whether or not this funding gets there we've got now this process that sets off until June 30th anything that you heard in reaction to the proposal I mean one thing I'll note is Senator Ruiz has been a champion for literacy and improving literacy among New Jersey students and there's about 2.5 million for literacy screeners that the governor proposed and Senator Ruiz is saying that's not enough there needs to be more to improve literacy and that's something she's going to focus on in budget negotiations and that was something he hit on in his State of the State all right Hannah Gross for us Hannah thanks so much thanks Bri