Sea Isle City School Has Highest Per Pupil Costs

TRENTON — Cape May County has some of the highest education costs in New Jersey, according to the 2009 Comparative Spending Guide released by the Department of Education on March 20.
Excluding special services districts, the Sea Isle City School District had the highest total per-pupil cost, $35,983, of any district in the state. Avalon finished just behind their northern neighbor with a per-pupil cost of $32,384 and Stone Harbor was next at $23,698.
The state average cost per pupil was $13,539.
In the spending guide, school districts school districts of similar size are compared with each other.
Of the 68 K-8 districts with less than 400 students, those three barrier island schools ranked 66th, 67th and 68th.
Other school districts in this county that ranked high in their respective categories included:
• K-6 districts — West Cape May, $21,856, ranked 61st out of 62 districts
• K-12 districts with up to 1,800 students — Wildwood, $18,133, ranked 44th out of 45 districts
• K-12 districts with 1,801-3,500 students — Ocean City, $17,509, ranked 67th out of 70 districts
• Special Services districts — Cape May County Special Services, $48,504, ranked 6th out of 8 districts
• Vocational districts — Cape May County Tech., $18,449, ranked 19th out of 21 districts
It wasn’t all bad news in Cape May County. Three local districts finished near the other end of the per-pupil cost rankings. The Woodbine district, for instance, had the lowest cost of the 68 districts with fewer than 400 students.
Similarly, the Lower Cape May Regional and Middle Township districts finished 13th out of 47 and 11th out of 70 districts respectively.
In addition to the per pupil cost assessments, the spending guide lists district information in 20 additional categories. To view the comparative spending guide, visit http://www.state.nj.us/education/guide/2009/
Education Commissioner Lucille Davy encouraged the members of the public and local school boards to review their district rankings in the CSG and to challenge themselves to improve upon last year’s spending plans.
“In his budget address last week, Governor Corzine made clear the unprecedented severity of the fiscal crisis we all face,” said Davy.
“Many of our citizens are out of work and struggling to pay their bills. This year, it is more imperative than ever for us to look closely at how we spend each and every education dollar. We must all ensure that this money is used for expenditures deemed necessary to help our students obtain the knowledge and skills they need in order to have a productive career and successful life.”
Municipal voters will be given an opportunity to approve or disapprove education budgets in the annual school elections held on April 21. Residents must register by March 31 in order vote in the school elections. Last year, voters defeated school budgets in Sea Isle City, Woodbine, Middle Township and West Wildwood.