meanwhile more than 100 school districts Statewide are staring down funding Cuts casualties of the school funding formula which calculates how much state aid is given to districts every budget cycle Governor Murphy last month moved to restore some of the money those schools are slated to lose but as senior correspondent Joanna gagas reports it won't be enough to avoid budget cuts it's crippling it's devastating catastrophic devastating it's it's a Carnage not words you typically want to hear when describing a school budget but in districts that have faced year-over-year Cuts since the new school funding law S2 was enacted the comparisons drawn by these superintendents sound downright gruesome the 24-25 school year currently is going to be looking at minus 13 million dollars the loss that comes over S2 to this point has been about 41 million but in actuality because it's a structural Revenue deficit it's about 130 million dollars over the last six years the problem with S2 no one seems to really understand how the funding's determined because it doesn't take into account something called adequacy which was a key element of the controversial school funding formula over the five years of S2 since 2018 uh brick schools has lost over 40 million dollars in state funding and is 24 million under adequacy which is what the state considers a thorough and efficient education not to mention we've cut over 250 jobs in that time period there's a formula out there that was designed to determine at frequency adequacy meaning how much should a district spend based upon the characteristics of the district the state of New Jersey the governor the Senate the assembly has decided that part of the formula that talks about spending has no part at all and the distribution of funds if it was districts that were already 170 percent of adequacy meaning they're spending 70 more than the state's formula says they need to be spending would not have gotten more money the state constitution guarantees every student in New Jersey is entitled to a thorough and efficient education but these districts that are facing year-over-year cuts for the last six years say under S2 they'll no longer be able to provide that it's just a paralyzing amount of dollars that will allow us not to perform our obligations to our community the biggest impact is going to come to the 250 or so children that have lost busing for next year and in Freehold the Regional High School is cutting courtesy bussing for 3 000 students superintendent Chuck Sampson says they're considering a plan to restore the rides but would require families to pay for them saving the district more than three million dollars we eliminated all busing in a two and a half mile radius we eliminated just under 20 positions now so the most significant impact is actually just been on an explosion in class size especially in in many of our just general Ed classrooms and what that looks like for our teachers who are now instead of teaching 110 new 115 students or somewhere 130 140 students that and not maintaining our infrastructure needs and what that looks like long term they're calling for the legislature to take a closer look at how the money is allocated and to restore funding before they fall off what they call an impending fiscal cliff come school year 2024 2025. hopefully the assembly and the Senators are just not understanding what's actually happening and the ripple effect to damaging these students lives I I see I I have to believe the issue is a lack of understanding because it's too hard for me to believe that an entire government body would choose this outcome we feel there's an inequity here quite honestly that there's an inequity and why shouldn't the students in Brick be treated the same way a similar cry to the one nearly two decades ago that a student's education shouldn't depend on their zip code and the very reason why the school funding formula was created in the first place for NJ Spotlight news I'm Joanna gagis [Music]