TOMS RIVER, NJ – A secret meeting held in Red Bank between New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, New Jersey State Senator Vin Gopal and Ocean County GOP Chairman George Gilmore was alleged to have been focused around school funding in Ocean County.
Ocean County GOP Chairman George Gilmore, when asked about the topic of the meeting after Shore News Network reported it, said the three spoke about school funding in Ocean County and not a controversial deal by Phil Murphy’s administration to preserve a large portion of the Ciba Geigy Superfund site for development by a client of Gilmore’s who had previously expressed interest in building at the federally condemned site.
This week, we learned efforts by Gilmore and Gopal to secure funding for Ocean County schools failed miserably.
Three school districts in Ocean County, under Gilmore’s political purview, saw among the most significant cuts to educational funding statewide.
Today, Gilmore’s chief nemesis, New Jersey Assemblyman Greg McGuckin and his District 10 legislators slammed Phil Murphy over cutting budgets for two Ocean County’s three largest public school districts, Toms River, Brick Township and Jackson.
“Governor Murphy’s massive school aid cuts to Brick and Toms River are malicious and unnecessary when he’s building a $10 billion budget surplus and putting $1 billion more into schools in other parts of the state,” Senator James Holzapfel said. “There’s absolutely no reason that schools in Ocean County or anywhere else should have their funding cut when the state is so flush with cash.”
According to school aid data provided today by the New Jersey Department of Education, nearly half of the school districts in the 10th Legislative District would have funding reduced under the governor’s budget proposal.
According to the budget released by Phil Murphy’s administration, the largest cuts in state school aid include $14.421 million to Toms River Regional (-31.8%), $2.542 million to Brick (-14.8%), and $215,059 to Seaside Heights (-31.8%). Smaller cuts will impact schools in Lavalette (-3.5%) and Point Pleasant Beach (-0.6%).
“Increased funding for schools shouldn’t come at the expense of other children’s education,” said McGuckin, whose family lives in Toms River. “All children deserve a thorough and efficient education, but Murphy’s budget and funding formula picks winners and losers. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been taken from Ocean County school districts to increase funding in Democrat districts. If Murphy really wants to address the learning loss all students experienced from his draconian lockdowns, he has to fully fund all schools.”
Funding to schools in the 10th Legislative District would decline by 18.8%, according to the Murphy administration.
“How do you cut state aid to Toms River by 32% and Brick by 15% and expect them to survive?” Assemblyman Catalano of Brick asked. “After absorbing years of aid reductions by the Murphy administration, there’s nothing left for these districts to cut. Unless you want classrooms without teachers, the governor’s budget cuts will lead to huge property tax increases in these towns. It seems crazy these harmful cuts are being proposed while Governor Murphy is building a $10 billion budget surplus that isn’t helping anyone.”
At this point it’s not sure who Gilmore, a political lobbyist was lobbying for at his Red Bank meeting with the Governor, but it does not appear to be the children in the affected school districts.