hundreds of people packed into the assembly budget committee today as it held its first hearing of the season and once again school funding was a Hot Topic as more than 150 districts face Cuts in their state aid this year school leaders say that'll lead to layoffs bigger class sizes and fewer programs the cuts are the result of a funding formula put in place some six years ago in an effort to fix inequities in the state's aid but districts that have faced multiple years of Aid Cuts say it's done anything but senior correspondent Joanna Gagis reports will now be over 200 positions cut and almost 30 million dollars in Lost state aid The Brick Township School District is among the more than 150 in the state that have faced year-over-year funding Cuts since Senate Bill 2 or S2 was passed in 2018 as two created a calculation to determine state aid working off of the school funding formula developed in 2008. the state will set an adequacy budget and then they say let's figure out how to pay for it and they figure out the community's wealth in what's called a local fair share according to the calculation districts like brick Toms River and Jersey City to name a few should have a higher local fair share than what they've been paying so the states made massive cuts to their state funding those cuts have been phased in over seven years this year being number six but the superintendents say the cumulative effect of those cuts is devastating we've cut 112 positions I've cut over 15 percent of my administrative staff our class sizes have increased overall dramatically we are over 30 in most of our Elementary classes some are as high as 34. but the problem say these districts they can't quite figure out how the state's arriving at these numbers this year we anticipated a 2.1 million dollar reduction the governor's initial budget had us at 6.7 million dollars but we really don't know the real why that it happened we can look at whatever calculations that the state comes up with but not knowing how they get to those calculations is really significant yet these education leaders say they've been denied access to the state's formula for how it's calculating those funding Cuts leading several districts to band together in a lawsuit against the state and that's outrageous outrageous that billions of dollars are being distributed in the state and it can't be explained as to what the factors are how they're weighed and how they're determined each and every year not only that says Baza but the cuts coming from S2 don't take into account the two percent property tax cap that municipalities can increase for additional school funding others say it doesn't account for inflation affecting costs everywhere either if they're not spending at the adequacy budget that the state prescribes and they can't raise their taxes to get there because they have the cap plus it may not be politically feasible in a community to raise you know the budget significantly through tax living how are we going to get where kids which the formula is right to do support every kid throughout the state regardless of the community that they live in a bill sponsored by senators and Andrew zwicker is making its way through the legislature right now that would reduce the cuts each district is facing this year by about 66 percent it helps but it basically makes it from severely catastrophic to less catastrophic the if the new legislative proposed legislation passes we will be at approximately 2.3 million dollars in reduction for us it's about the the further S2 is active the further away brick schools and other like districts of which there's not many get further away from adequacy which is the state says we're required to provide an education for students they're calling for a new approach to the funding formula that accounts for inflation and creates a transparent discussion around how these numbers are being calculated so they can provide a thorough and efficient education as the state constitution requires for NJ Spotlight news I'm Joanna Gagis