Gov. Phil Murphy on March 2 visited Montgomery Upper Middle School in Skillman to highlight K-12 school funding in his fiscal year 2024 budget, which he unveiled Feb. 28.
“As I told New Jerseyans on Tuesday, this next New Jersey is going to be grounded on three central tenets: affordability, responsibility and opportunity,” Murphy said. “But no issue touches on all three of these tenets more than education, and arguably no issue is as critical to our state’s future than education.”
He added, “Statewide, we are increasing K through 12 classroom funding by $832 million dollars to a total of nearly $11 billion dollars. That’s an all-time high. … Investing in our public schools is the right thing for so many reasons. Strong public schools ensure the highly educated and highly skilled workforce that New Jersey is known for and which is critical to our economic future.”
Among the other notable proposals in the FY2024 budget are more than $20 million to shore up New Jersey’s teaching ranks, a $7.1 billion pension payment to public sector employees and $109 million for preschool education aid ($40 million of that will be used for expanding PreK programs in new districts).