Bill Text: NJ A1286 | 2024-2025 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Provides additional State pupil transportation aid to school districts that meet certain criteria.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)
Status: (Introduced) 2024-01-09 - Introduced, Referred to Assembly Education Committee [A1286 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2024-A1286-Introduced.html
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
221st LEGISLATURE
PRE-FILED FOR INTRODUCTION IN THE 2024 SESSION
Sponsored by:
Assemblyman ALEX SAUICKIE
District 12 (Burlington, Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean)
SYNOPSIS
Provides additional State pupil transportation aid to districts that meet certain criteria.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
Introduced Pending Technical Review by Legislative Counsel.
An Act concerning pupil transportation and supplementing P.L.2007, c.260 (C.18A:7F-43 et al.).
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. A school district shall receive 100 percent of pupil transportation costs for regular education nonpublic school pupils eligible for transportation pursuant to N.J.S.18A:39-1 or the aid-in-lieu of transportation amount, as appropriate, provided that based on the October District Report of Transported Resident Students:
a. the number of students qualified for nonpublic school transportation or aid-in-lieu of transportation payments in the school district increased by over 100 percent in the five-year period prior to the 2022-2023 school year;
b. in any single school year, the costs for nonpublic school transportation or aid-in-lieu of transportation increased by over 20 percent; and
c. at least 20 percent of the school district's transportation budget was allocated for nonpublic school student transportation costs in the 2023-2024 school year.
2. This act shall take effect immediately.
STATEMENT
This bill provides additional pupil transportation aid for any school district in which:
· the number of students who qualified for nonpublic school transportation or aid-in-lieu of transportation payments in the school district increased by over 100 percent in the five-year period prior to the 2023-2024 school year;
· in a single school year the costs for nonpublic school transportation or aid-in-lieu of transportation increased by over 20 percent; and
· at least 20 percent of the school district's transportation budget was allocated for nonpublic school transportation costs in the 2023-2024 school year.
A district that meets these criteria is to receive 100 percent of pupil transportation costs for regular education nonpublic school pupils.
The sponsor believes that the State school funding law as revised under P.L.2018, c.67 (commonly referred to as "S2") is faulty and, if its implementation continues, will reduce the educational and extracurricular opportunities available to students and cause potentially irreversible damage to many school districts across the State. The formula for providing transportation aid fails to take into account unforeseen developments and therefore unreasonably creates additional stress on certain school district budgets that may be inconsistent with the State's constitutional responsibility to provide for a thorough and efficient education for all students.
It is the sponsor's intent through the provisions of this bill to provide additional State aid to certain school districts that are experiencing exceptional demographic changes. In the recent New Jersey Appellate Division case of Alcantara v. Allen-McMillan, Docket No. A-3693-20, the court reviewed a decision by the Commissioner of Education in regard to the contention of parents of Lakewood School District students that the district was not providing a thorough and efficient education and this was due to a failure to adequately fund the district. The court reversed the commissioner's decision that the district was in fact providing a thorough and efficient education and remanded the case for consideration of the State school funding law and its constitutionality as applied to Lakewood. The court's decision was based in large part on the demographic trends in the district. The provisions of this bill recognize the fact that other districts, in addition to Lakewood, are experiencing unique demographic shifts that make the provision of a constitutionally adequate thorough and efficient education impossible without additional State aid.
