A Burlington County school district facing a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall plans to eliminate nearly 50 teaching and staff positions to stay afloat.
Student protests and widespread anger from parents and teachers erupted in Bordentown Regional School District last month after the board of education approved its tentative $53.5 million budget for the 2025-26 school year.
Several elementary and pre-K teaching positions, as well as special education and counseling jobs, will be cut under the new budget plan. The district will also remove two administrative positions, making its administration the smallest it’s been in more than two decades.
“The plan that I introduced was horrific,” Interim Superintendent Edward J. Forsthoffer III said Thursday. “We need to eliminate four dozen faculty and staff members. This results in increased class sizes across the board and decreases in basic skills instruction.”
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With just two weeks left to finalize the budget last month, Forsthoffer returned to the district as interim superintendent after the previous superintendent resigned.
The board was grappling with an $8 million deficit at the time and needed to introduce a plan to close the gap, he said.
Major costs, including salaries and benefits for staff members, have increased, district officials said. That forced the district to make tough decisions.
More students are also attending out-of-district schools, which Bordentown must pay for and factor into its costs, officials said.
“Unfortunately, where we are is not a surprise and there was not much we could do to prevent it,” Forsthoffer said.
Bordentown Regional School District has five schools and about 2,200 students. It serves students in Fieldsboro, Bordentown City and Bordentown Township.
Though enrollment has decreased by more than 150 students over the past four years, the number of students requiring special education services has skyrocketed, also driving up costs.
This is the first time in since enrollment has dropped that the district is reducing its staff, according to Forsthoffer.
Along with the staff cuts, Bordentown plans to eliminate middle school sports, remove two school buses and cut some maintenance expenses to save $100,000 at each of its five schools.
After Gov. Phil Murphy unveiled his $12.1 billion school funding plan for fiscal year 2026, the state Department of Education released preliminary state aid figures for the state’s nearly 600 districts in February.
This year, Murphy administration has capped state aid increases for school districts at 6% and limited cuts to 3% or less in major funding categories.
Bordentown’s state aid dropped by about $8,000 to $8.2 million in the proposed budget. According to state figures, the district’s budget is “below adequacy,” meaning it should be spending more to ensure students receive a thorough and efficient education.
However, without an increase in state aid, there’s no way to close the gap without staff cuts, the superintendent said.
Some school districts across New Jersey have taken desperate measures to make up for years of underfunding and deficits. State school aid has long been a contentious issue, with many districts blaming New Jersey’s school funding formula — fully implemented for the first time last year — for their budget troubles.
At its April 9 meeting, the Bordentown Board of Education approved a resolution to ask the state education commissioner for permission to exceed its spending cap by up to $1 million for the 2025-26 school year.
If approved, the district could raise property taxes and receive more aid, helping it move closer to proper funding levels. The money would then be used to restore some teaching and staff positions that were eliminated, school officials said.
As of Thursday, the district’s request has not been decided on yet, Forsthoffer said. He said he hopes the request will be approved in May when the district’s final budget is due.
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Nyah Marshall may be reached at [email protected]