the Murphy Administration is offering a Lifeline for school districts facing steep state aid cuts the governor this week signing legislation that will give districts the ability to apply for millions in Grants and the option of raising property taxes to help offset the funding they're losing a senior correspondent Joanna gagas reports affected schools don't have much time to act they're in the midst of finalizing budgets and considering layoffs if nothing happened these bills uh did not pass then we were looking to eliminate an additional 40 positions and that most definitely would have taken our class sizes into the 40s it came down to the wire for school districts like lacy Township Hillsboro and South Brunswick just three of the 140 districts that lost money in this year's final round of S2 school funding the formula that allocates state aid to districts all waiting until just a day before their budget were due to learn the legislature and Governor had approved a stop Gap funding measure they did everything that they said they were going to do not a phrase you hear often about Trenton or school funding but they call it a victory to see the law restore 45% of the state aid that had been cut this year and a measure allowing those districts that lost funding year-over-year to increase property taxes beyond the 2% cap without voter approval that's where the tension comes in because that would be on the backs of our tax taxpayers of of which I'm one of them um and it's that it's that tough uh Balancing Act the property values are better when our schools are better and in order to do that we need we need the funding to do it Hillsboro was looking at staff layoffs and cutting all Middle School sports the tax increase in the high 7% for them will translate to about $160 a year for households in South Brunswick 35 teachers were to be laid off their jobs are now saved along with school security mental health programs and no increase to families for pay to play so our families were going to have to be paying $350 a family for activities sports clubs they're going to pay more for parking more for taking an AP test Lacy Township's Vanessa Pereira said even with a property tax increase her District may still need to approve a referendum for Capital Improvements and it's falling on taxpayers all at once what I would have loved to have seen is is perhaps they had given us the option that instead of doing 9.9% straight increase that perhaps we were able to do that incrementally Senator Andrew wicker who sponsored the legislation that passed this week acknowledges there's way more work to be done before next year's funding allocation this is not the right way to do school funding overall I will be the first to admit that this was a temporary stop Gap measure the only thing we can do now is catch our breath and dive head first into tweaking the school funding formula so that we're not in the same place next year the ability to raise taxes above the 2% cap is only for this year only for repeat losers these superintendant would like some flexibility there it generally takes about 4% or four and a half percent for any school district to move from one year to the next so with a 2% cap but you need 4% each year you're kind of in the hole do you think the answer for New Jersey is to have a 4% cap or do you think that that needs to be a flexible number given the changing inflation that we're seeing I believe something tied to inflation is not is not out of line the wild wild west of school district be able to tax whatever they want with no vote no I wouldn't support that Hillsboro's Mike vulpi wants to see a more human element in the formula determinations once the numbers are run have somebody take a look at it before you distribute that out to school districts hey you know what this is really going to hurt Hillsboro how can we come up with a Do no harm approach that still gives every District their proportional amount that is the million dooll question now for NJ Spotlight news I'm Joanna gagas