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March 31, 2026
Speaker Craig Coughlin
Senate President Nicholas Scutari
145 W. State Street Trenton, NJ 08625
Dear Honorable Coughlin and Scutari,
Today, I write to you as Mayor of Monroe Township in Middlesex County, where my fellow taxpayers and I are currently self-funding over 80 percent of a $172 million school budget each year. I will not stop fighting for increased funding and fair funding for suburban school districts like ours.
In 2010, Governor Christie cut our state education aid to less than $1 million despite the size of our student population. For too long, leaders in Trenton and state education officials had ignored our residents who had been crying out for fair school funding.
As a Councilman from Monroe Township in Middlesex County in 2017, I joined former Mayor Gerald W. Tamburro in supporting Senate Bill 2 (also known as “S.2”) because we believed the School Funding and Reform Act of 2008 (SFRA) had not been properly implemented and Monroe Township, its residents and, most importantly, its children, were being short-changed from a 2008 bill that had already become law.
I attended the Senate hearing with the education commissioner in 2018 to ensure that S.2’s seven-year phase-in would begin, and I have advocated every year since to continue and enhance that funding. We have come to the end of that phase-in period, and the underlying law still does not represent fair funding for our residents and our children. In fact, the State is now proposing a 3% reduction in aid to Monroe.
It is critical and laudable for the legislature to look at the school funding system and recognize that there are different, unique and important needs in every community.
It was clear before S2, and after, that the school funding formula in New Jersey is broken and a much more fair and equitable distribution is needed, one that meets the needs of unique suburban districts, who are presently woefully underfunded.
Monroe is a unique community. In Monroe, almost 40 percent of our population is sixty-five or older and more than half of our population is over 55 years. The median age is 57.3. Many in our communities live on a fixed income. We also have many parents who struggle to make ends meet while paying high state income taxes and expect, like all of us, a fair return on those taxes to support our Monroe children and their education.
I implore you to hear our Monroe residents and Board of Education members who have been desperately requesting fair funding for our students and to develop a formula that provides support to Monroe students and taxpayers.
Stephen Dalina
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