More school districts than towns: Gopal continues push for consolidation

State Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Tinton Falls) made the same logical argument for consolidation that New Jersey residents have been hearing for generations.

This time, however, it wasn’t about municipalities but school districts.

“Why should two school districts neighboring each other have the same healthcare broker, yet they’re negotiating for two sets of employees?” he said. “Why do we have IT departments in all these places? Why do we have a municipal court every five minutes? These are just common-sense things.”

Gopal was speaking to an overflow crowd of business leaders last Friday on a legislative panel during the Public Policy Forum sponsored by the N.J. Business & Industry Association. Late last year, Gopal introduced a bill (S-4861) that aims to cut administrative costs and create a uniform curriculum for students, by requiring executive county superintendents to create plans to merge districts with fewer than 500 students.

Gopal was clear last week that he’s not pushing for “county-wide” schools, but an effort simply to have more regional school districts.

It’s a shared services-type of argument that many elected officials have made for years, including Steve Sweeney, the former State Senate President.

The concept is simple: Shared services reduce overhead, both in redundant positions and services. The idea always is met – and almost always defeated – by those who say it would take away from the “home rule” that Jerseyans supposedly covet, but they do so while complaining the taxes needed to support the idea are too high.

Sweeney was not able to get far during his time in Trenton. Gopal is hopeful he will — thanks to the support of new governor Mikie Sherrill.

Sherrill did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story, but she has said in the past that she supports consolidating more school districts. It speaks to one of the biggest themes of her campaign: Affordability.

Incredibly, New Jersey has more school districts (approximately 590) than municipalities (564). And many people think the state has an unusually high number of municipalities.

Gopal told the crowd he knows the ask isn’t easy.

“I get how politically tough of an issue this,” he said to the 450 or so that were there. “But New Jersey has way too much government. And we can do a lot on the contracts and services side.”

This isn’t about education. New Jersey annual ranking as one of the very best in the nation is a badge of honor.

This is about how we pay for it, Gopal said.

He told the crowd about a conversation he had with Toms River officials, who said they spend more than $150 million a year on special education. He mentioned (but not name) another school district in his area that has dropped from 550 students to 240 over the last decade, yet its overall budget’s gone up.

“It’s not sustainable,” he said.

The NJBIA said school taxes accounted for 52% of local property taxes collected in 2024, according to state data.

Approximately $15 billion in school aid in the FY26 state budget accounts for more than one quarter of all state spending approved for the current fiscal year.

NJBIA Chief Government Affairs Officer Christopher Emigholz said the organization strongly backs the concept.

“We strongly support forced consolidations, incentives to consolidate, forced shared services or anything that pushed New Jersey in that direction,” Emigholz told New Jersey Business. “Because when we talk about such steps, these are true spending cuts — not just a Band-Aid.”