Jersey City Public Schools – 2025/26 Budget Insights (Focus on Revenues)

This is a follow-up to a previous post about the 2025/26 schools budget about Jersey City’s 2025/26 schools budget which was introduced on March 19th.

Key Insights Include 21% School Levy Increase

Here are key insights which I expand upon below:

1. Jersey City Public Schools are funded, now more than in the past 10 years, by the local school tax levy. In 2018 the school levy funded 17% of the budget; in 2025/26 it will fund over 60% of the budget.
2. The school levy increased by 21% in 2025/26. Importantly: this does not mean school tax increased by 21% (read below for that nuance)
3. The District Administration and Board of Education displayed a disappointing lack of public engagement around this budget. This lack of engagement represented a lost opportunity to build awareness of this budget and support for what it funds.

I’ve shared a few insights about each of these items below. I also have a data visualization to help readers interact with some of this data.

Public Data and Links

I always like to start with where my analysis comes from. Public data available to inform this post includes:

1. The 2025/26 “User Friendly Budget”. This is a templated budget produced by state budgeting software and used by the district; it is online here and is the most granular and accurate view into the public data.
2. The slide deck summary of that User Friendly Budget is online on “Public Board Docs” here and it represents the district’s attempt to summarize, for the board of trustees and the public, the granular nuance.
3. The second of two budget hearings, held on April 30, 2025, is recorded on Facebook Live here.

My comments below are limited to a few key insights after reviewing the documents above. Feel free to contact me here with questions if you have them.

1. The school budget is now 60% funded with local sources

Each year, school budgets throughout New Jersey are funded by a mixture of federal, state, and local sources, as well as existing resources (e.g. cash on the books). Historically, Jersey City Public Schools were funded by state aid. Consider: as recently as 2018, the school levy funded only 17% of the schools budget but in 2025/26, it is funding 60% of the schools budget.

I have written extensively on Civic Parent about this paradigm shift caused by state aid cuts so I will not dive into that rabbit hole here; just know you can learn more of the context here.

2. The school tax levy increased by 21% in this budget

Each year the school board must pay expense, and each year that expense must be funded with a mix of revenues from federal, state, and local sources. The primary local revenue is the “local school levy” and in 2025/26, it will increase by 21% (from $443 million in 2024/25 to $534 million in 2025/26).

Importantly: this does not mean school tax will go up by 21%. That is because along with school levy growth, there has also been tax base growth. And your school tax expense is based on both the levy and the tax base. You must look at both factors to understand how much the school tax will grow. I will have a separate post to inform school tax rate and expense change. For now, I want to note: the major highlight here is that the district administration and the Board of Education need more local funds, via our school tax dollars, to fund the local schools that educate our city’s children.

3. A Lost Opportunity

I shared on the record via public comment at the April 30th school board budget meeting that this year’s budget presentation represented a lost opportunity. Consider:

1. The school administration presented and voted on the first draft of this budget on March 19th. There was no sharing of the public data prior to that date. The district could have used the January through March timeframe to communicate about this budget, like they did in 2024.
2. The board of education (the trustees) have continued to limit public comment to 3 minutes, even at the budget hearing. Three minutes is very limited window for taxpayer engagement on any topic, let alone for a budget hearing. In my view, this is tone deaf and lacking good faith on the part of the board of education. There should be no clock at a budget hearing, especially when only a handful of taxpayers show up to that hearing.
3. The BOE – administration and trustees – were not crisp on basic details related to the school levy. The administration over-relied on the “state budgeting software” and the trustees were caught flat footed on basic questions around one of their primary mandates: the size of the school levy. I viewed this as lacking focus on the details.

These factors point to a challenge around transparency and it impacts taxpayers directly (who lack insight into the tax dollars) and it also impacts school staff, parents, and children indirectly (as public ire is directed at an administration and board that lacks transparency).

Coming Up

I will be providing a breakdown of the school tax change, as it’s interesting nuance around how the school levy and school tax work. Stay tuned for that in my next post.