2025 Proposed State Aid for Chatham, Millburn, Madison, Berkeley Heights, New Providence, Westfield and Summit

Last week, Governor Phil Murphy delivered his fiscal year 2026 state budget address, which covers the 2025-26 school year. The budget calls for a record-breaking $12.1 billion in funding from the state to N.J. public schools.

The proposed state aid below is calculated based on a formula that takes into account several factors, including average household income within a community, school enrollment, the number of special education students, and transportation costs. Below are the numbers:

Data for all districts can be found in this chart provided by northjersey.com. Please note that these funding numbers are part of the proposed budget and while likely, are not final until the final budget is passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor prior to the June 30th deadline.

One major change in this public schools funding formula, different from the past seven years, is that districts can only gain 6% in funding and lose no more than 3% funding year-to-year. From 2023-24 to 2024-25, we saw some neighboring districts increase 10% or greater in state funding.

Berkeley Heights

From the table above, Berkeley Heights Public Schools (BHPS) is set to gain $181,198 in state funds, or +6%, from this current school year (2024-25) to the next (2025-26). One can only speculate why, but it may have to do with a high population of special education students in-district (versus out of District) and transportation costs, as BHPS is a busing district.

Pending this increase in state aid, and an overall increase in annual state aid of over $2 million, or +260% since the 2016-17 school year, it is our hope that the BHPS administration and Board of Education put this money into classroom instruction, academic support and needed facility upgrades.

State aid amounts:

2017-18 (+8% for BHPS; Governor Christie’s final year)

2018-19 (+21% for BHPS; Governor Murphy’s first year)

2019-20 (+11% for BHPS)

2020-21 (+5% for BHPS)

2021-22 (+21% for BHPS)

2022-23 (+20% for BHPS)

2023-24 (+16% for BHPS)

2024-25 (-0.26% for BHPS)

2025-26 (+6% for BHPS, proposed)

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