NJ giving $75 million to school districts to fund new buildings, renovations, repairs

GARFIELD – Standing outside a school that benefited from state-funded renovations more than 15 years ago, Gov. Phil Murphy announced that New Jersey will spend millions on capital maintenance and emergent projects for schools.

Murphy said that the state’s Department of Education and Schools Development Authority (SDA) will release $75 million to defray the cost of capital maintenance, such as new schools, additions and major renovations, and emergent infrastructure projects, like plumbing, mechanical and electrical issues.

Of that money, $50 million will be divided among the 31 SDA districts, including more than $850,000 to Garfield, while the remaining $25 million will go to regular operating school districts. There are about 600 public school districts in New Jersey.

The money Murphy announced Friday comes from funds included in the state budget the governor signed in June.

“These aren’t just critical funds for making sure our schools remain safe and welcoming spaces for our kids and educators,” Murphy said. “But what’s more is every single dollar of these funds is a dollar of property tax relief. Every single dollar being distributed is a dollar that the school boards do not have to ask local taxpayers.”

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SDA CEO Manny Da Silva said that significant school facility needs exist in districts throughout the state and that the money will help to support a “safe and healthy learning environment.”

“The funding announced today will be available to offset district costs so they can make important and necessary improvements to their school facilities,” he said. “This is a state investment that will result in improvements of schools throughout New Jersey and therefore is an investment in our state’s next generation of leaders.”

Also on hand, Garfield Superintendent Anna Sciacca noted that the announcement “brings great joy, hope and optimism to the Garfield community.”

She noted that six of seven elementary schools in the district are more than 100 years old and are plagued with issues but that the “biggest challenge is overcrowdedness and insufficient of space for instruction.”

The SDA funded an addition and renovations to Garfield’s Christopher Columbus School 8, where Murphy made his announcement Friday, in 2005. The project cost more than $9 million and included a 12,950-square-foot addition and renovation of the existing school.

The scandal-plagued agency made headlines for a patronage problem that led to the ouster of the CEO and mass firings a few years ago. It now faces an uncertain future as legislators debate what the agency will look like moving forward.

Although the authority has done hundreds of projects in recent years, it has a long list of repairs and replacements needed throughout the state at schools built in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But state leaders have not agreed on reauthorizing billions more in borrowing that taxpayers would repay.

The Supreme Court may soon weigh in on whether the Murphy administration must spend nearly $2 billion on "emergent" school construction projects as advocates argue that state officials failed to live up to their legal obligations.

In the most recent filing to the court, the Murphy administration estimates that about two dozen projects, mainly to address overcrowding in SDA districts, would cost $1.97 billion – not including costs for such things as acquiring land or demolishing buildings.

And that nearly $2 billion is just a fraction of what's needed to build new schools and repair others in the foreseeable future. For now, the authority has no funding for new projects and dozens of schools throughout the state are outdated, overcrowded, falling apart and have poor ventilation.

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In addition to building and renovating schools in the SDA districts, the agency also provides grants to hundreds of other regular districts to address health and safety issues and other critical needs.

In addition to the $75 million Murphy announced Friday, he budgeted another $200 million for school construction. But the advocacy group Education Law Center, which brought the Supreme Court case, said in a recent filing that the state "has again failed" to fund its legal responsibilities at schools.

"​​​​​​The extremely limited appropriations for school construction in the FY 2022 budget are patently insufficient to address the urgent need for the facilities improvements in SDA districts that the State itself has repeatedly acknowledged," the center said.

This story has been updated to clarify where the funds are coming from.

Staff writer Dustin Racioppi contributed to this story.

Katie Sobko is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: sobko@northjersey.com

Twitter: @katesobko

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ giving $75M to school districts to fund new buildings, renovations