The Board of Education's budget was confusing to the public despite several notable updates to the funding paradigm.

My friend Amy Wilson writes at “Neighborhood Character” and she recently asked me for my insights about the 2025 schools budget in Jersey City. Intrigued, I dug into the documents for the first time in early April. I was surprised by some of the ledes that were buried, including:

1. State aid is down only 3% in the aggregate.
2. Yet the BOE appeared to exercise its right to use “banked cap” to increase the school tax levy by more than 2% to fund its operating budget
3. The bottom line: expense is up, structurally, in this budget. BOE trustees spoke of this general trend in the budget, but the school tax increase was not clearly explained in the public hearing.

The BOE needs to provide more clarity in its budget presentation and especially at the next budget hearing on April 30, 2025.

Let’s walk through the details below.

Gathering the Public Data

The public data includes

• the “Preliminary Budget” here, shared by the JC Board of Education (BOE) business administrator on March 19th. On that day it was both presented and voted on
• I also used this data visualization from the Education Law Center, a research- and advocacy-centered nonprofit that focuses on school funding in New Jersey and other states.

INCOME SIDE OF THE BUDGET

Page 7 from the BOE presentation shows budgeted operating revenues for grades K through 12 for all public schools (including public charters) that serve JC children. A few observations:

1. Column #1 (for 2024/25) does not foot. This is a notable presentational blunder.
2. Equalization aid decreased to $0 in 2025/26 (we can see this in Column #2). 
3. Total State Aid is down by 3%, or about $4 million (we can see this in Column #3).

Importantly - this is Kindergarten through Grade 12 only; this is not inclusive of PreK3 or PreK4 (this will have more meaning down below).

For those interested in the nitty gritty details -- take your time to note:

1. Column #1 (for 2024/25) does not foot. The district appears to have added a duplicative $98,107,475 into its Column #1 tally. What makes this confusing is: the $98M is already included in $133M “State Aid” amount just above it. The duplicative $98M is not included in the $863M total at the bottom. So, the $863M appears to be correct as a net total (it ties *roughly* to the proposed 2024/25 K through 12 operating revenues from last year’s “User Friendly Budget” here). I realize this is confusing right out of the gate, but let’s keep going.
2. Equalization aid decreased to $0 in 2025/26 (we can see this in Column #2). The district may have been wanting to emphasize this decrease in equalization aid by calling out the $98M in its own line, showing the $98M in 2024/25 and then the $0 in 2025/26. This is an important fact, so I’ll just note that this did happen, per the most recent State Aid notice for 2025/26 which is also shown by the Education Law Center’s chart.
3. Total State Aid is down by only 3%, or about $4 million (we can see this in Column #3). Here is what I’ve pieced together but the district should confirm to the public more clearly: Total state aid decreased by about three percent. Within that total “State Aid” bucket however, there are several categories of aid, including (a) “equalization,” (b) “transportation,” (c) “security,” and (d) “special education” aid. The aid among these buckets was reclassified in 2025/26…with a huge decrease to “equalization” and then offsetting increases to the other three buckets (transportation, security, special education). The net effect was a 3% decrease overall. The district appears to have highlighted the equalization aid decrease (movement “out of bucket #1”)… but it did not show the related offsetting increases (movements “into buckets #2, 3, and 4). The lack of context around all 4 “buckets” is very confusing. [State aid is inherently very complicated and can be confusing (I feel that’s worth noting) so I won’t try to peel back any additional layers here, other than to note the bottom line here is: state aid to Jersey City is down by only 3% this year.]

EXPENSE SIDE OF THE BUDGET

Expense is highlighted on page 9 of the budget presentation and my first caution is: there is an “apples and oranges” dynamic at play here as it relates to the income on page 7 and related expense on page 9 because the expense (page 9) includes state-funded PreK and federal-funded Title 1 contributions. If we peel back those two layers (which are the final two line items on page 9), we can see the $914M in expense that is likely being funded by the $914M of income shown on page 7. I have tried to visualize this below, side by side:

So what I assume is happening is: the district is using the banked cap revenue (which we see on page 7, which is part of the $914M) to fund $914M in total K through 12 operating expense (which we see on page 9).  So why does the district need the banked cap if state aid is only down 3% this year? We can see the answer to this in the rightmost column: expenditures are up across the board.  Note the “% Change” (rightmost column) on page 9 indicating, high level, that the cost of the district is going up in most categories. In fact the only budgeted decreases are for “Co-curricular Activities/Athletics/Alternative Ed/ESY” (an 11% decrease), “General Administration” (a 1% decrease), and “Transfer to Charter Schools” (a 3% decrease).

Slide 29's Tax Levy is Unclear (as it relates back to Slide #7)

That the district needs the $82M in banked cap seems to make logical sense…until we get to slide 29, which states a $452M school levy (where “levy” = the total amount needed from property taxpayers to fund the schools budget). That is legitimately confusing given slides #7 and #9, where it seems apparent that the $82M is part of the overall tax levy needed (in addition to the $452M).

I realize the details here can make one’s head spin. My main takeaway is: this all merits a clear explanation from the Board of Education. Both the district administration and the BOE trustees are in a position to help walk the public through this…and they should. They have an opportunity to help the public understand the math at the next budget meeting on April 30th at 6pm.

Key questions include:

1. What was the actual levy that was approved? Did it include the banked cap ($452M + $82M) or not (just the $452M)?
2. Can the district give a future-looking view of structural expense challenges (I’m not getting into details on this but it’s underlying the landscape and merits community awareness and dialogue)
3. There are legitimate questions here about payroll tax (which involves the city); as the payroll tax goes UP, the burden on the school levy goes DOWN
4. There are other questions too, I’m sure, that live in the wisdom of community i.e. the countless perspectives and concerns from parents, advocates, teachers etc. I encourage anyone reading this to feel confident in asking questions.

What I would encourage those who are curious about this budget to do is: email the BOE trustees your questions. Their emails are available here. The BOE trustees have an interest in answering questions because they are voted into office and they likely are curious about these details, too. And they will be in a position to ask targeted questions (they are not time constrained, like we the public are, during public comment) of the district administration both off the record (behind closed doors) and on the record (at the public meeting).

If you have questions of me pertaining to anything in this post, please leave them in the comments.

PS - A note about tax base math.

The tax base is a huge factor in the tax rate formula (it is the denominator) and the school budget notes that it grew 4% this year [and a side note for the wonks: this is the assessed value of the tax base (not the market value]. As the assessed value of the tax base grows, it eases pressure on the tax rate (this is numerator/denominator math). So, even if the school levy is increasing, with the tax base increasing too, the overall rate impact may be mitigated. This is complicated beyond the budget itself, but I felt it worth noting here.