Evan Scott is a lifelong New Jersey resident, a veteran, and a retired military service member. He holds a bachelor’s degree in education and was elected to his hometown’s Board of Education in 1988. Now living in Evesham Township, NJ, he continues to advocate for fair and transparent school funding.

For too long, New Jersey’s public education system has been trapped in a cycle of uncertainty. Every year, districts wait to see how much state aid they’ll receive — guessing, hoping, and budgeting in the dark. Teachers are left wondering if jobs will be cut. Taxpayers never know whether their property taxes will rise again. And every budget season turns into a political football, with the same question hanging over us all: What will the state fund this year?

It doesn’t have to be this way.

A Smarter, Simpler, Fairer Model

New Jersey can bring stability to our schools, relief to our taxpayers, and fairness to our teachers by adopting one simple reform:
The State must assume responsibility for core teacher compensation and predictable district support.

Here’s how:

• Provide a Baseline, State-Funded Salary: The State will fund a fair, professional baseline salary for every full-time teacher in New Jersey.
• Pay All Health and Social Security Contributions: The State will cover all teacher health benefits and the employer share of Social Security.
• Fully Fund Teacher Pensions: The State will maintain and guarantee all payments to the Teachers’ Pension and Annuity Fund (TPAF).
• Preserve SDA Operating Aid: The 31 School Development Authority districts — our former Abbott districts — will continue receiving full operating and preschool aid to meet the needs of their students.
• Local Control for Everything Else: Districts will continue to fund all other SFRA components, plus any salary above the state-funded baseline. This keeps local autonomy intact while locking in the State’s share as a predictable, guaranteed obligation.

As with any serious reform, a few practical questions immediately come up — and they deserve direct answers:

Would NJEA Accept State-Set Minimum Salaries?

This plan strengthens collective bargaining rather than undermining it. The State would establish only a minimum salary floor, not a maximum. Everything above that floor remains fully negotiable at the local level, exactly as today. In fact, this makes collective bargaining easier by removing the largest source of volatility: unpredictable state aid.

Currently, local bargaining units and boards negotiate in the dark because districts never know what funding they’ll receive. A guaranteed state-funded baseline provides unions with a stable foundation for negotiating higher salaries, longevity steps, stipends, and additional benefits. It directly addresses NJEA’s biggest challenge—recruitment and retention—by making the profession competitive statewide, something local bargaining alone cannot accomplish when wealthy districts consistently outbid struggling ones.

Most importantly, NJEA gains something it has never had: an enforceable state obligation. The State cannot underfund or skip baseline teacher compensation the way SFRA aid has been shortchanged for years. Unions don’t lose bargaining power under this model; they gain stability, leverage, and guaranteed statewide competitiveness.

Does This Comply with Abbott?

This plan not only passes constitutional muster but strengthens the core requirements of the Abbott rulings. The New Jersey Supreme Court never required the State to fund every aspect of district budgets. What the Court mandated was equity in educational opportunity, additional resources for high-poverty districts, and a guarantee that those districts receive what’s needed for a thorough and efficient education.

The Abbott decisions recognized that teachers are the backbone of quality education. By having the State fully fund teacher baseline salaries, benefits, and pensions, we ensure the most important resource—qualified, stable, well-compensated teachers—is guaranteed equally in every district, rich or poor. This aligns more closely with Abbott’s intent than our current system.

SDA districts would retain all operating and preschool aid without reduction. They would continue receiving supplemental funding, parity payments, preschool support, and programmatic aid. The equity mandate remains fully protected while districts gain unprecedented budgeting stability. By guaranteeing equal access to qualified teachers statewide and maintaining all constitutionally required supports, this model preserves both parity and adequacy.

One of the most important ways this model strengthens Abbott, rather than weakening it, is that it finally allows the money to follow the child the way SFRA was supposed to work. Today, when districts receive their state aid, it is deposited into the general fund and quickly absorbed by fixed costs like salaries and benefits. The cohort-based needs SFRA identifies—English learners, students in poverty, and other at-risk groups—are often diluted because there is no real flexibility left. By shifting core teacher compensation to the State, districts free up local and categorical dollars to hire paraprofessionals, interventionists, counselors, and other supports directly tied to their actual student enrollment.

How Would This Affect Special Education?

Under this plan, the State would pay for each full-time equivalent teacher assigned to special education classrooms—the same guarantee extended to every other teacher. Districts would retain full responsibility for all other special education services and supports, including paraprofessionals, one-to-one aides, behaviorists, speech and occupational therapy, child study teams, psychological services, transportation, out-of-district placements, and all compliance costs under IDEA and state regulations.

Currently, special education budgets get squeezed because districts struggle under teacher salary growth, health benefit inflation, and unpredictable state aid. By shifting the largest expense to the State, districts gain real capacity to properly fund required supports, making IDEA compliance stronger rather than weaker. SDA districts would keep all special education categorical aid, extraordinary aid, and related supports—nothing would be taken away. Because teacher salaries would be state-funded, these districts would have unprecedented flexibility to provide the supplemental services Abbott requires. 

The Financial Reality

To illustrate how achievable this is, consider a straightforward example. If the State guarantees a $75,000 baseline salary for every full-time teacher, the total cost would be about $8.9 billion. Yes, this means every new teacher would start their career at $75K! Adding State-funded health benefits brings the figure to roughly $3.1 billion more, and covering teacher pensions and the employer share of Social Security adds approximately another $5 billion. In total, the State would take on about $17 billion in core teacher compensation—well within New Jersey’s current $22 billion PreK-12 appropriation. The remaining $5 billion keeps all SDA operating aid fully intact.

This represents a reallocation of resources New Jersey already commits to education, not new spending. Currently, districts spend roughly this amount on teacher compensation through a combination of local property taxes and state aid. The difference is that under this model, the State’s obligation becomes direct, predictable, and enforceable rather than filtered through the uncertain SFRA formula.

Because teacher salaries and benefits comprise the overwhelming majority of local school budgets—typically 60-70% of total spending—shifting these costs to the State would substantially reduce the property tax burden. The exact reduction would vary by district based on local salary levels and other factors, but most districts could expect meaningful relief. Rather than promising specific percentage reductions that depend on local implementation decisions, the key benefit is structural: homeowners would no longer bear the primary burden of the fastest-growing component of school costs.

Why This Works

This plan solves four of the biggest problems facing New Jersey today:

• It ends the teacher recruitment and retention crisis by guaranteeing competitive, stable pay and benefits.
• It provides real property-tax relief — shifting the largest cost in local budgets (teacher salaries and benefits) off the backs of homeowners.
• It gives districts the certainty they need to plan responsibly, eliminating the chaos caused by unpredictable state aid.
• It keeps our Constitutional promise to provide a thorough and efficient education for every child, staying true to the intent of the Abbott decisions.

This isn’t a new cost — it’s a smarter allocation of what we already spend. New Jersey appropriates roughly $22 billion each year toward PreK-12 education. Redirecting a portion of that toward guaranteed teacher compensation creates stability without new taxes.

At the same time, this reform allows New Jersey to absorb programs like ANCHOR and StayNJ into a single, more efficient school-funding structure. Instead of maintaining multiple tax-relief programs that require applications, eligibility rules, and annual appropriations, the State can fold those dollars directly into this new model. The result is the same — real, recurring property-tax relief — but delivered automatically and predictably through structural reform, not temporary rebates.

The Bottom Line

This plan ends the annual guessing game. It makes the State’s obligation enforceable, protects our schools, and ensures teachers are never subject to political whim. Most importantly, it creates a sustainable foundation for public education funding that serves teachers, taxpayers, and students equally well.

The path from here to implementation will be complex and require compromise from all stakeholders. But the alternative—continuing our current system of uncertainty, underfunding, and inequity—serves no one’s interests. New Jersey can choose lasting stability over perpetual crisis. We simply need the political will to make it happen.