LAKEWOOD, N.J. – Lakewood families are being asked to pay $945 per child for non-mandated school transportation this year, up from $385, just as New Jersey’s maximum aid-in-lieu transportation payment for eligible nonpublic students stands at $1,177 per child.
That apparent $232 difference has prompted an obvious question: If neighboring districts such as Jackson and Toms River can provide or pay as much as $1,177 for eligible private-school students, where does the rest of the money go in Lakewood? The answer is more complicated because the two figures are not payments for the same service.
The state’s $1,177 figure applies to students legally entitled to mandated nonpublic transportation who cannot be transported within the statutory cost limit. The $945 Lakewood Student Transportation Authority charge, by contrast, is being assessed for non-mandated, or courtesy, transportation for students who generally live too close to their schools to qualify for state-required busing.
- LSTA’s currently published non-mandated transportation charge is $945 per student, not $995, and the prior announced rate was $385.
- New Jersey’s maximum aid-in-lieu payment for the 2026-27 school year is $1,177 for eligible students entitled to mandated transportation.
- State rules do not indicate that every non-mandated Lakewood student generates a separate $1,177 government payment, meaning there is no documented $232 balance automatically left over from each $945 parent payment.
$1,177 State Payment Is for Mandated Transportation, Not Every Student
The New Jersey Department of Education says aid in lieu of transportation for the 2026-27 school year is $1,177, or $6.54 per day.
To qualify, an elementary or middle-school student generally must live more than two miles from the nonpublic school, while a high-school student must live more than 2.5 miles away. In most cases, the school also must be within 20 miles of the student’s home.
“If transportation cannot be provided, parents are entitled to $1,177 as aid-in-lieu of transportation,” the Department of Education explained in its transportation guidance.
That is the system districts including Jackson and Toms River operate under for students who meet the state’s eligibility requirements.
Jackson’s school district explicitly tells parents that the “Maximum amount is $1,177 per student” when an eligible child cannot otherwise be transported. It also makes clear that aid in lieu is simply the alternative to providing the mandated bus ride itself.
Toms River likewise handles nonpublic transportation under the state system and has contracted with LSTA to transport eligible nonpublic students. Under its agreement, the district may remit to LSTA an amount equal to the state aid-in-lieu figure for each eligible student LSTA agrees to transport.
Why Lakewood Parents Are Being Charged $945
The current Lakewood dispute involves a different class of rider: children receiving non-mandated transportation.
Those students generally live within two miles of an elementary school or within 2.5 miles of a high school. Because state law does not require districts to transport them, the service is commonly described as courtesy or subscription transportation.
New Jersey expressly allows school boards or coordinated transportation agencies to provide that service and “charge the parent or guardian for all or part of the cost of transportation.” The state says that charge cannot exceed the actual per-student cost of the route.
Lakewood Alerts reported Thursday that LSTA increased the parent charge from $385 to $945 after government funding that had helped support the broader transportation system was no longer available.
According to that report, “the actual cost of providing a seat can reach as high as $1,177,” while LSTA said route efficiencies allowed it to set the parent charge at $945.
That leaves a $232 difference between the maximum state transportation figure and the LSTA parent charge, but it does not necessarily represent missing money. If LSTA can provide a non-mandated seat for $945, there is no requirement that someone separately pay the remaining $232 simply because the state’s mandated-transportation ceiling is $1,177.
However, that money is now going directly to the LSTA, and not to the families, so the LSTA’s profit margin has to be questioned.
Public Money Still Raises Questions About LSTA’s Overall Finances
The distinction does not eliminate broader questions about how LSTA is financed.
A 2026 state review of the Lakewood school district found that LSTA transports roughly 25,000 mandated nonpublic students and another 10,000 nonpublic students receiving courtesy busing. The review said courtesy transportation had been funded through a combination of government grants and family fees.
That means LSTA’s overall transportation network receives money from multiple sources serving different categories of students.
The same state review found that Lakewood contracted through LSTA for nonpublic transportation while other public-school transportation was handled separately. The size and complexity of that arrangement makes it difficult for parents looking only at a $945 invoice to determine precisely what portion of total operating costs is being paid by families, school districts, municipalities or state aid.
Toms River provides one example. Shore News Network previously reported that the district has continued to send millions of dollars to LSTA to transport eligible nonpublic students, and district financial records show substantial payments to the authority.
A Toms River district payment report from April showed a single monthly LSTA invoice of $332,698.67, illustrating how public contracts and individual parent fees operate simultaneously within the larger system.
What information would show exactly how LSTA calculated the $945 charge?
A detailed LSTA budget showing route costs, number of non-mandated riders, government grants or subsidies, district contract revenue and parent-fee revenue would make the calculation transparent.
The unfortunate part of all of this is that nearly $30 million annually is spent on private school busing in Lakewood, Toms River, and Jackson, but the agency that receives that money is under no obligation to provide its financial statements or release an annual independent financial audit.
So we may never know what’s really going on here.
So Where Is the ‘Rest’ of the Money Going?
Based on currently available records, there is no evidence that LSTA receives $1,177 for every non-mandated Lakewood student and then charges that student’s family another $945 when you factor in courtesy busing. But since the LSTA books are not open for inspection, they can’t be verified.
The $1,177 is a maximum expenditure or aid-in-lieu amount tied to students who qualify for mandated transportation. The $945 is the announced parent price for students who do not qualify for that mandate but still want transportation.
While this is all routine, it begs to ask the question. If LSTA can provide the busing for $945 per family, is that how much it costs to bus even the mandated children? That leaves almost $232 per student on the table. While that doesn’t sound like a lot of money, it raises the possibility of a $5.8 million discrepancy.
For mandated students, the financial structure is different. The state has told lawmakers that districts generally bear the first $710 of qualifying nonpublic transportation costs, while the state reimburses expenditures above $710 up to the $1,177 maximum.
For non-mandated students, the state allows parents to be charged up to the actual per-student route cost. That means the question for LSTA is less “where is the missing $232?” and more “what is the documented actual cost per non-mandated rider, and what public funding, if any, is still offsetting that cost?”
Those are figures that are not fully explained in the announcement raising the fee.
The timing has intensified frustration. Lakewood Alerts reported that families who already paid $385 must pay an additional $560 to remain enrolled in the program, while families opting out will receive refunds.
For a family with four affected children, that represents an additional $2,240 before the school year begins.
What remains unclear from the publicly available material is a detailed 2026-27 LSTA accounting showing the total projected cost of courtesy transportation, the number of paying students, the amount of government assistance that disappeared, and how the $945 figure was calculated.
Those numbers would allow families to determine whether $945 represents the genuine per-seat cost after all subsidies and efficiencies or whether other revenue is also being applied to the same routes.
Why does New Jersey pay some private-school families $1,177 while LSTA charges Lakewood families $945?
The $1,177 aid-in-lieu payment applies to students who qualify for state-mandated transportation but cannot be bused within the statutory limit. LSTA’s $945 charge applies to non-mandated students who generally live closer to school and are not automatically entitled to transportation.
Does LSTA receive $1,177 from the government for every student whose family pays $945?
The available state rules and public records do not support that conclusion. Non-mandated students do not automatically generate the $1,177 aid-in-lieu payment, although LSTA separately receives public funds for mandated transportation and other contracts.
Sources: New Jersey Department of Education nonpublic transportation procedures; New Jersey Department of Education budget response on nonpublic transportation funding; Jackson School District nonpublic transportation information; Toms River Regional Schools transportation information; Lakewood Alerts report on the LSTA fee increase; New Jersey Department of Education review of the Lakewood Public School District, Lakewood Alerts
