Gov. Phil Murphy on March 8 delivered his fiscal year 2023 budget address in Trenton, and education was a recurring theme.
Here are highlights from Murphy’s address:
• “This budget dedicates roughly 24 percent of its total expenditures to direct aid to education. There are not many states in America that can say that. It is a signal to every property taxpayer that we are partners in their community’s success.”
• “Across this administration’s first four years, we invested $3 billion more in K-12 education for our public schools than the prior administration did across its last four. This continues our progress. Our budget will increase this aid by an additional $650 million dollars for a total of $9.9 billion dollars.”
• “We will also continue our work to expand access to PreK programs for more of our kids. Since 2018, and in partnership with you all and our school districts, we’ve increased PreK investments to date by almost $250 million dollars, and we’ve expanded PreK by nearly 9,000 seats in the process. We’re gonna add another nearly $70 million to this total in the upcoming year.”
• “For those moving on from high school to college, we will keep that next step within reach as well. We will continue expanding the reach of our successful Community College Opportunity Grant Program for a fifth year, and we will make the second year of support for the Garden State Guarantee, which can provide two years of study at one of our four-year public colleges and universities, tuition-free to thousands of eligible students.”
