COURT HOUSE – Cape May County has 13 operating municipal school districts, two countywide school districts and three non-operating districts.
In the 2022-2023 school budgets, county taxpayers are expected to contribute over $170 million toward the cost of educating 11,121 students in elementary, middle, and secondary schools. The 13 operating municipal districts are comprised of 28 separate schools.
Understanding the flow of funds and enrollments, even with what are euphemistically called user-friendly budgets, is challenging at best. Students move from home districts to other schools, funds come from a variety of sources for a myriad of purposes, and state aid falls into almost a dozen categories.
What the budgets collectively can be used for is a sense of overall expense and the degree to which that expense depends upon tax dollars. They can give an approximation of total enrollment in each district at a point in time. They can also provide a comparative sense of the per pupil cost in each district for the education that district provides.
Structure
The 13 active municipal districts all provide elementary-level education. Middle school may be provided at the home district or through arrangement with a nearby district. The county has four municipal high schools in Ocean City, Middle Township, Wildwood and Lower Township, where the high school is organized as part of a regional school district.
Of the county’s 16 municipalities, three – Sea Isle City, West Wildwood and Cape May Point – do not have active school districts.
The county has two countywide school districts, the Vocational and Special Services districts. The county vocational district offers a fifth high school option for residents.
Enrollments
With sending and receiving of students among districts complicating the count, one overall number for point-in-time enrollment in each district is the report of total students on-roll, as of Oct. 15 of each school year. For the 2022 -2023 school year, that number is an estimate used to calculate the budget.
The 13 active municipal school districts show a combined enrollment of 11,121 students projected for Oct. 15, 2022. These enrollments range from a low of 83, in Avalon, to a high of 2,565, in Middle Township.
According to state Department of Education reports, enrollments are down 10% from the same point-in-time figures from five years ago in the 2018-2019 school year.
Operating Budgets
School district budgets can be difficult to understand, given the number of funding sources and appropriation areas. One budget figure that offers a picture of ongoing expense is the total operating budget, the cost of operating the district for that budget year. It does not deal with capital expenditures.
The 13 municipal school districts’ operating budgets for the coming school year total $256 million. With expected funding from the tax levy over $170 million, the county’s operating municipal districts are relying on tax dollars for approximately two-thirds, 66%, of their operating funds.
The budgets show total funding from state sources expected at $47 million. Other sources of funds vary in importance depending on the district. Tuition is a major resource for some districts and not others. Cape May benefits from a special source of revenue – federal impact payments due to the enrollments it absorbs from the Coast Guard Base.
Property taxes remain the principal source of funding for education, with state aid shrinking in the county due to the ongoing phase out of adjustment aid over a seven-year period.
County School Districts
There are two county school districts. According to the vocational school district budget for 2022-2023, the district projects 749 enrollments with an operating budget of $18.6 million.
County taxes are expected to contribute $8.2 million, tuition, $5,2 million, and state sources, $1.4 million.
The per student cost in the vocational district is $24,261. The median per pupil cost for the 13 municipal districts is $20,912.
The Special Services School District has an operating budget of $13.2 million, with a tax levy contribution of $4 million and tuition, $8.7 million. The district has enrollment projected at 219 students. Its per pupil cost, $59,215, is the highest in the county due to the special attention the district’s students require.
Cost Per Pupil
Each of the budgets calculate a budgetary comparative per pupil cost that varies greatly across the county.
The three highest cost per pupil figures are in North Wildwood, at $39,076, Wildwood Crest, at $37,292, and Avalon, at $35,793.
Five of the 13 municipal districts are over the $20,000 mark, with $26,255 for Stone Harbor, $25,603 in Cape May, $21,384 in Ocean City, $20,912 in Wildwood and $20,664 in Lower Cape May Regional.
The remaining five districts are grouped together, with Lower Township Elementary at $17,527, Woodbine at $17,257, Upper Township at $16,885, Dennis Township at $15,968 and Middle Township with the lowest per pupil costs of $15,275.
These calculated costs represent a difference of over $23,000 per pupil from the highest in Wildwood Crest to the lowest in Middle Township.
Dependence on Tax Dollars
The three districts with the highest level of per pupil costs, North Wildwood, Wildwood Crest and Avalon, are also the only districts whose expected tax levy is over 80% of the total operating budget. The same three districts, along with Stone Harbor, are also the ones that receive the lowest level of state support.
The lack of other sources of revenue helps explain the variance in dependence on tax funding. Middle Township is expecting $12.7 million in funds from state sources and $2.3 million in tuition. Its tax level is 64% of the total operating budget.
Wildwood Crest has almost no tuition revenue expected, and its budget includes only $604,841 in funding from state sources.
Cape May, with its military impact payments, has an operating budget that relies on city tax funds for only 36% of its funds, which is the lowest among the county districts.
Perhaps the best, but far from perfect, comparative statistic on costs remains the total cost per pupil, which, regardless of how it is funded, reflects the cost of providing an education to a district’s children.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.
