Cranbury Proposed State Aid and Education Cuts

[Dan Mulligan]

Cranbury Township

$610,227 State Aid 2009 2010

$468,633 Proposed State Aid 2010-2011

- $141,594 Cut

- 23.2% Percent cut

The proposed statewide 2010-2011 municipal aid cuts total $275,508,631, a reduction of 17.4%.

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2010-2011 Proposed Education Cuts
County MIDDLESEX
District Name CRANBURY TWP
2009-2010 State Aid $769,042
2010-2011 State Aid $0
Aid Cut -$769,042
Percent Cut - 100.0


District Budget $17,625,834
State Aid Cut as Percent of District Budget -4.4

[Guest]

Average impact per taxpaying household in Cranbury: $379

$910,000 / 2 (commercial vs. Residential)

$455,000 / 1200 HH

(Assuming no expense cuts)

[Guest]

Can someone tell me how Jamesburg which is smaller tahn us continues to get a lot of state aid?

I suppored Christie, but he's no better than Corzine, he's taking from districts like ours and supporting other districts so while we continue to pay more and more state taxes we get less and less. This is why I oppose consolidation, the state would just take even more from our local property taxes and distribute it elsewhere in the county.

[Guest]

If it is redistribution of income that you do not like, Christie is worlds apart from Corzine.

[Guest]

They are far apart, but Christie is still taking away from the haves to support the have nots. He's simply also taking some away from the have nots as well. But, let's not fool ourselves into thinking he's playing all things equal. We just lost a lot.

[Guest]

Last year David Stout said at a TC meeting that the Township was receiving "nothing" from the State. Seems he was wrong.

[Guest]

Here’s the thing about the State aid. I am fine with it going away completely. What I am not fine with is that it is a one-way street, because Cranbury Township taxpayers are sending the State a lot of taxes. So what is happening is that they are using us to subsidize other townships and schools. Which is particularly ironic since we were supposedly the inefficient small township that Corzine wanted to consolidate to save money. Yet we are covering 100% of our own costs now and covering some of the costs of larger townships and school districts. The truth is this has been going on a long time – we’ve long sent the state more than we received – but at least the subsidy was obscured by the fact that we got some money back. Now it is straight-up forced charity. All things considered, I would rather have my subsidy of other townships and schools come in the form of taxes and not Corzine’s plan to force us to merge (because having our taxpayers subsidize the townships/schools we merged into was always real objective of that program). That said, Christie can’t credibly claim he is pursuing a different goal than Corzine – just in a more up-front way.

[toenailcake]

Hey.
Why not auction off naming rights for The Cranbury School to the highest bidder?
I mean, The Cranbury School is NOT very original nor creative.
How about, The Sun Bank School..........or..........The Prudential School................or The Exxon-Mobil School.
I like that one.
It'll raise much needed funds and teach our little ones that our nation REALLY is run for the almighty buck.
They may as well learn that lesson early on!

[Guest]

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[Guest]

State education aid should be replaced with vouchers for the needy. Power to the people!

[Guest]

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[Guest]

Whatever Christie does has to pass muster with the supreme court, so you're not going to get a perfect plan. If Christie did what you're suggesting, he'd get crushed by the court for disproportiately affecting poor districts.
As it is, Trenton is losing $10 million and we are losing $600k. What Christie is doing is smart and sensitive. It's not that hard for the guy smoking two cigarettes a day to go cold turkey. The guy smoking 5 packs a day has to start somewhere.

If Christie does exactly the same thing next year (cut all aid up to 5% of each district's budget), Cranbury will receive a 0% cut and Trenton will lose another $10 million. Are you going to argue that that is unfair to Trenton?

[Guest]