Audubon Community Advocates | Fix the Funding Formula

Tell Trenton: Fully Fund the Formula. Stop Scaling Down Our Schools.

New Jersey's school funding formula (SFRA) calculates exactly what each district needs for a thorough and efficient education (the Adequacy Budget) and how much of that a community can reasonably cover locally. The state is supposed to pay the rest through Equalization Aid.

In practice, it doesn't work that way. The state decides how much aid money is available first, then applies a scaling multiplier that shrinks the amount of aid each district receives to fit inside that fixed pot, regardless of what the formula actually says students need. The result is a funding formula that looks fair on paper but quietly delivers less than it promises. Here's what that means for Audubon:

Audubon is still underfunded, two years running. As the state's share of school adequacy budgets has shrunk statewide, from 38% in 2008-09 to 31% in 2025-26,¹ local taxpayers have been forced to make up the difference. Even so, Audubon's tax levy and state equalization aid together total about $21.8 million for 2025-26 and $22.7 million for 2026-27,² leaving the district $2.5 million below the state's own adequacy target in 2025-26 and about $1.5 million short in 2026-27.
Real costs aren't reimbursed. Audubon's transportation aid covers only a fraction of actual costs. The state is providing just $74,384 in transportation aid for 2026-27³ against budgeted student transportation costs of more than $850,000,² a gap of more than $775,000 that the district has to cover with general education funds.
Aid is capped, not calculated. The state limits how much any district's aid can change in a single year: decreases are capped at 3% and increases at 6%, for both 2025-26⁴ and 2026-27.⁵ The cap on cuts cushions the blow, but the cap on increases means districts can't receive everything the formula calls for; the Legislature's own budget analysts estimate it saves the state $332.6 million in 2026-27 alone.⁵ Because the caps are imposed through each year's budget language,¹ aid is set by a cap that has to be renewed every year, not by each district's actual, calculated need, and districts cannot plan with confidence.
The pressure compounds. For 2026-27, Audubon's state aid falls by $205,327 (2.09%)³ at the same time the district's budgeted employee benefit costs climb by about $1.15 million, to $6.93 million,² in a year when the state actuary recommended a 34.4% increase in school employee health premiums.⁶ With so little room to absorb those losses, the district was forced to budget a 7.59% increase in the local tax levy² and to cut staff and programs, including eliminating one first-grade and one second-grade classroom and converting two instrumental music positions to part-time.⁶

The fix is simple:

Fully fund the Adequacy Budget as calculated.
Eliminate the scaling multiplier that shrinks it to fit a fixed appropriation.
Make the caps on state aid cuts permanent so districts can plan responsibly.

It is time for our legislators in District 5 to stand up for Audubon's students and residents. Use the form below to voice your concerns directly to Senator Cruz-Pérez, Assemblyman Moen, and Assemblyman Spearman.

Take Action ↓

Sources

Education Law Center, "Breaking Down School Funding in Governor Sherrill's Proposed FY27 Budget" (April 8, 2026)
NJ Department of Education, Audubon 2026-27 User-Friendly Budget Summary
NJ Department of Education, FY27 State School Aid by District (Audubon Boro)
NJ School Boards Association, "Education Highlights of the Murphy Administration's Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Proposal" (March 4, 2025)
NJ Office of Legislative Services, Analysis of the New Jersey Budget, Fiscal Year 2027: Department of Education
The Retrospect, via InsuranceNewsNet, "Benefit Costs Squeeze Schools, Driving Cuts, Tax Hikes And Difficult Tradeoffs" (September 11, 2026)

Email Your Legislators

Make your voice heard: Fill out the form below to instantly send a message to our District 5 representatives demanding a permanent fix to the school funding formula.

Your Full Name *

Your Email Address *

Your Phone Number

Your Message (Editable) *

Dear Senator Cruz-Pérez, Assemblyman Moen, and Assemblyman Spearman:

As a resident of Audubon, I am writing to urge you to pass legislation that will permanently fix New Jersey's school funding formula.

The formula is supposed to calculate exactly what our district needs for a thorough and efficient education, then have the state cover the gap beyond what our community can reasonably afford locally. Instead, the state sets its total aid budget first and applies a scaling multiplier that shrinks every district's aid to fit that fixed pot, regardless of what the formula actually says our students need.

The impact on Audubon is real: with state aid falling short of what the formula calls for, our district has been forced to lean on local taxpayers, including a 7.59% increase in the tax levy for 2026-27, and it remained $2.5 million below the state's own adequacy target in 2025-26 and is still projected to be about $1.5 million short in 2026-27. Categorical aid streams like transportation fall far short of actual costs: Audubon receives just $74,384 in transportation aid against more than $850,000 in budgeted costs, a gap that general education funds are forced to cover. And because the state caps aid decreases at 3% and increases at 6% through its annual budget language, aid is set by a cap rather than by real need, and our district cannot plan responsibly from one year to the next.

I am asking you to support the following reforms:

1. Fully fund the Adequacy Budget as calculated, and eliminate the scaling multiplier that shrinks it to fit a fixed appropriation.
2. Make the caps on state aid cuts permanent, and allow for multi-year state aid projections that extend the district planning window by at least six weeks.
3. Permanently change special education funding from a census-based method to actual numbers.
4. Fully fund Extraordinary Special Education Aid.
5. Align transportation funding with the real cost of providing it.
6. Cap year-over-year vendor cost increases.
7. Reform the state health benefits plan.
8. Revise the PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) program.
9. Change aggregate income to median income, and use three-to-five-year averages for Local Fair Share calculations.
10. Use current property and income data, not figures that are years out of date, for funding calculations.
11. Update the Educational Adequacy Report process to reflect real-time needs.

Audubon's students, teachers, and taxpayers cannot continue to bear the cost of a formula that promises full funding on paper but delivers less in practice.

I look forward to hearing how you plan to address this critical issue in the legislature.

I certify that I am a resident of Audubon, NJ. *

I would like to receive email updates and action alerts from Audubon Community Advocates.

Tell Trenton: Fix School Health Benefits Before Costs Break the Budget

The 2020 law that gave school employees salary-based health insurance contributions (Chapter 44) expires at the end of 2027.² In the meantime, health care costs for the School Employees' Health Benefits Program (SEHBP) keep climbing: on September 25, 2026, the state commission that sets premiums voted 4-2 to accept a 34.4% rate increase for about 300,000 school and county college employees and their families, taking effect in January.³ Audubon has already felt this firsthand: the district's budgeted employee benefit costs climb by about $1.15 million in 2026-27, to $6.93 million.¹

Two companion bills, S4438 (Sen. Vin Gopal and Sen. Joseph Vitale) and A5285, propose a response: the "Public School Employees' Health Benefits Trust Act." Instead of leaving plan design and cost decisions to the state Treasury, the bill would create an independent trust, jointly governed by a 10-member board representing both educators and school employers, to manage health coverage for public school employees statewide.⁵ The Senate State Government Committee heard testimony on S4438 on October 15, 2026, with unions, school boards, and district groups split on the bill.⁶

Shared governance, not a state mandate. The board would include three NJEA appointees, one from the American Federation of Teachers NJ, one from community college faculty, one each from the NJ School Boards Association, School Business Officials, School Administrators, and Principals and Supervisors associations, and one appointed by the Governor.⁵
Pools risk to try to control costs. The trust's stated purpose is to pool health risk across all participating school employees and manage plan design in the sole interest of beneficiaries, rather than leaving those decisions to a state commission under budget pressure.⁵
A real timeline, not an immediate fix. If passed, the trust would not begin offering coverage until January 1, 2028, so it does not address this year's or next year's premium increases on its own.⁵
Still a work in progress. The bill is not universally supported. At the October 15 hearing, the NJ School Boards Association said Chapter 44 gave employees real financial relief but produced no long-term savings, and other witnesses called the trust "essentially the current one in new dress." Even the NJEA asked that the text be amended to make clear that plan value and the salary percentage remain negotiable.⁶ Pooling risk may steady the plan, but it does not by itself lower what care and prescriptions cost. The underlying drivers of health care cost growth still need to be addressed directly.

What is driving the costs?

Without getting too far into the weeds, a few things are pushing premiums up:

Rising medical and prescription costs. Medical costs keep escalating and the use of costly prescription drugs is growing.³
Districts leaving the pool. When districts move to private options, the state plan is left with a costlier group, which pushes rates up further. State actuaries and officials have called this a "death spiral."³⁴

Given that, our ask is measured, not a blank check:

Support moving S4438/A5285 forward through committee so the idea gets a full, public vetting rather than stalling.
Insist that any final version controls costs at the source, not by shifting more of the expense onto educators, support staff, or local taxpayers.
Don't let Chapter 44 lapse at the end of 2027 without a workable replacement already in place, so districts and employees aren't left bargaining health benefits in a vacuum.
Commit to continuing the work on the underlying drivers of health care cost growth, including prescription and medical costs and the instability of the pool, so that no single bill is treated as the end of real reform.

Use the form below to tell Senator Cruz-Pérez, Assemblyman Moen, and Assemblyman Spearman where you stand on fixing school health benefits before costs break local budgets.

Take Action ↓

Sources

Email Your Legislators

Make your voice heard: Fill out the form below to instantly send a message to our District 5 representatives about fixing school health benefits.

Your Full Name *

Your Email Address *

Your Phone Number

Your Message (Editable) *

Dear Senator Cruz-Pérez, Assemblyman Moen, and Assemblyman Spearman:

As a resident of Audubon, I am writing about the rising cost of health benefits for New Jersey's public school employees, and about S4438/A5285, the "Public School Employees' Health Benefits Trust Act."

Health care costs under the School Employees' Health Benefits Program have become unsustainable. On September 25, 2026, the state commission that sets premiums voted to accept a 34.4% rate increase for 2027. Audubon's own district is budgeting about $1.15 million more in employee benefit costs this year alone, on top of everything else squeezing our school budget. And the 2020 law that currently caps employee contributions as a percentage of salary, Chapter 44, expires at the end of 2027, leaving a cliff that districts and educators cannot afford to fall off of unprepared.

S4438/A5285 proposes creating an independent, jointly governed trust for school employee health benefits. I support moving this bill forward through committee so it receives full public review, but I also want to see it refined so that it genuinely controls costs at the source, rather than simply shifting more of the expense onto educators, support staff, or local taxpayers. Whatever the final solution looks like, it needs to be in place well before Chapter 44 expires at the end of 2027.

I am asking you to:
1. Support advancing S4438/A5285 through committee for full public vetting.
2. Ensure the final bill controls health care costs at the source, not by shifting costs onto employees or taxpayers.
3. Act before Chapter 44 expires at the end of 2027, so districts and employees are not left bargaining health benefits with no framework in place.
4. Commit to continuing the work on real reform of the underlying drivers of health care cost growth, including prescription and medical costs and the instability of the pool, rather than treating any single bill as the end of the effort.

I look forward to hearing how you plan to address this critical issue in the legislature.

I certify that I am a resident of Audubon, NJ. *

I would like to receive email updates and action alerts from Audubon Community Advocates.

Common-Sense Technology Reforms for Our Schools

Classroom technology isn't going away, and it shouldn't. Used well, it's a real tool for teaching and learning. UNESCO's global education report concluded that "some technology supports some learning in some contexts, but not when it's over-used," and noted that good, impartial evidence on education technology is in short supply.³ That is the case for guardrails: clear rules about which tools belong in the classroom, and proof that they help students before districts adopt them.

New Jersey has already taken one step in this direction: in January 2026, Governor Murphy signed S3695/A4882, requiring statewide guidelines restricting non-academic cell phone and device use during the school day and limiting use at school-sanctioned events, with district policies taking effect for the 2026-27 school year.¹ That's a good foundation. We think it's worth building on with common-sense rules for the devices and software schools actually assign to students, not just the phones in their pockets.

We're not asking Audubon to rip out every device. We're asking for guardrails that most parents, educators, and districts already agree are reasonable:

Keep the youngest learners screen-light. No personal devices or screen-based instruction as the default in the earliest grades (TK-2), and purposeful, curriculum-driven device use in grades 3-8 rather than technology being the default for every lesson.²
Block what doesn't belong in class. Gaming, video-streaming, and social media should be blocked on school-issued devices.²
No ads, no unproven EdTech. Any app or platform used for instruction should be ad-free and should have to show it actually contributes to academic growth instead of just having an educational sounding name before the district buys it.²
Devices off during breaks. No devices during passing periods, lunch, or recess, so kids get a real break to interact with each other.²
Real transparency and consent. Parents should be able to see what technology their child's school uses and how, and apps that collect student data should require parental consent, consistent with federal COPPA rules.⁴²
Screens aren't a reward. Screen time shouldn't be used as a prize or a behavior-management tool in the classroom.²

Add your name in support. There is no bill on classroom EdTech to point you to yet, so our plan is to bring these proposals directly to the Audubon superintendent and the school district at large. If you agree that these are reasonable, moderate guardrails, sign on below. The more parents, educators, and neighbors who stand behind them, the harder they are to set aside.

Sign On in Support ↓

Sources

NJSBA: Governor Murphy signs cell phone ban into law (S3695/A4882)
Schools Beyond Screens: Reform Proposals. Our wording is a moderate adaptation; that page goes further in places (for example, eliminating all device use for TK-2 and 1:1 devices for grades 3-8).
Teacher Magazine: UNESCO calls for smartphone ban in schools, summarizing UNESCO's 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report
FTC: Complying with COPPA, Frequently Asked Questions

Sign On in Support

Stand with us. Enter your email to add your support for these proposals and to hear when we present them to the superintendent and district, or when legislation comes up that you can weigh in on.

Who We Are

Audubon Community Advocates is a group of concerned neighbors, parents, and residents of Audubon, NJ who came together because we believe our schools, our educators, and our students deserve better.

We are not a political party or a government body. We're everyday members of this community who care about the future of Audubon's schools and the taxpayers who fund them. We formed to give local residents a direct, simple way to make their voices heard on the issues that affect our schools, starting with New Jersey's broken school funding formula.

Whether you're a parent, an educator, or simply a neighbor who cares about this town, we welcome you to join us.

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