Same Storm, Different Boats
Three Central Jersey school districts face the same budget crisis, but where you live decides how much you pay.
Chris Howell | April 23, 2026
On the same Tuesday night in March, three school boards within a half hour of each other voted to send very different bills to their taxpayers.
In Rahway, the average homeowner will pay about $171 more next year to fund local schools. In Metuchen, $330 more. In Edison, the district still hasn’t released an official number, but the business administrator confirmed an 11.9% increase to the operating budget. One resident stood at the microphone and estimated the jump would cost her family over $2,000.
All three communities are dealing with the same swirling crisis. Federal COVID relief money that helped fund schools for the past three years is gone. Health insurance costs are rising faster than state law allows districts to raise taxes. And where each town lands in New Jersey’s school funding formula — which directs the most state money to the poorest communities — is now the single biggest factor separating a painful year from a manageable one.
The storm is the same. The boats are very different.
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Understanding what these budgets mean starts with knowing who lives in each town.
Metuchen is a small, well-off community with about 2,300 students. The median household income is roughly $158,000. Only 6% of students are considered low-income. Because of that relative wealth, the state sends Metuchen just $3.6 million in aid for the coming school year, a fraction of what its neighbors receive.
Rahway is mid-sized and more financially stretched, with around 6,700 students and a median household income of about $91,000. About 40% of students come from low-income households. That high number is the reason Rahway receives more than $54 million in state aid, up from just $21 million in 2017. That aid growth has been, as Rahway’s business administrator Eric Burnside told his board, “the backbone of our ability to expand services and keep the local tax impact manageable.”
Edison sits in between with median household earnings of around $124,000. But it is by far the largest district, with 17,000 students across 19 schools. It receives about $88.8 million in state aid, but that number has dropped two years in a row. The district absorbed a $6 million cut in total state support over the past two budget cycles and is now paying the price.
In Edison, the school district’s business administrator confirmed an 11.9% increase in the operating budget. (The Central Jerseyan)
Three pressures are hitting all of these schools at the same time.
First, health insurance. New Jersey’s public school health plan raised premiums by nearly 30% for 2026. The state’s own financial consultants blamed rising use of expensive prescription drugs, including popular weight-loss medications, for the spike. Every district named health costs as a top driver. Metuchen’s health insurance line jumped about $900,000 in a single year. Edison built in nearly $4 million for the same reason.
Rahway saw it coming and made a move. The district switched out of the state health plan entirely and joined a different insurance program. That change avoided what Burnside estimated would have been a $3 million increase. The switch is one big reason Rahway’s homeowners are paying $171 next year instead of far more.
Second, COVID money is gone. Districts used federal pandemic relief funds to cover everyday operating costs for three years. Now those funds have dried up, and there’s nothing to replace them. Edison is pulling about $5 million from its savings to help fill the gap this year. Metuchen has stopped adding to its financial reserves for the first time in years.
Third, a state rule limits how much a school district can raise local taxes each year, roughly 2% under normal circumstances. The problem is that insurance costs, teacher salaries, and other expenses are growing at two to four times that rate. The gap between what districts are allowed to raise and what it actually costs to run a school compounds every year.
Edison’s situation stands apart not just because the numbers are bigger, but because of how the district got here.
For five years, the Edison school board held the line at zero percent tax increases. Board members campaigned on it. Residents came to expect it. But costs never actually stopped growing. The district covered the gap by drawing on savings and reserves — until those ran out.
The result is a preliminary $372 million budget that raises the local tax collection by about $28 million compared to this year. Business Administrator Jonathan Toth laid out the financial reality at the March 24 board meeting: a $6 million hit from state aid cuts over two years, $11 million less in available savings, a $3.5 million increase in required pre-K funding, and $7 million in rising costs for salaries, benefits, and transportation.
The March 24 meeting turned contentious. The board voted to submit the preliminary budget to the county (a required legal step) before telling residents what the individual household cost would be. That number is expected at the district’s formal public hearing in April or May.
Residents who lined up at the microphone that night were angry about the process and the outcome. One resident said the board had not listened to the public at all. Another resident argued the zero-percent strategy was never honest or realistic.
“If you easily just went 2% every year,” he said, “it would not have been as difficult as people now having to pay a 12% increase.”
The board pushed back. Board member Shannon Peng pointed out that if the district had raised taxes 2% a year for five years, the total increase over that period would actually have been higher than this year’s single-year jump. But by compressing all the pain into one year, the district is now facing community anger, a public petition to revise the budget, and a rebuke from Mayor Sam Joshi, who called the proposal “reckless and irresponsible” in a video statement.
The formal budget hearing, where Edison residents will finally learn what the increase means for their tax bill, is scheduled for Tuesday, April 28.
Rahway came out of its March 24 hearing in the strongest shape of the three districts. But board president Joseph Toma was careful not to declare victory.
Toma pointed to a problem that no single district can fix. State aid to Rahway grew by just $260,000 this year. But the district’s employee benefits costs are growing at nearly 8% a year. That gap — between what the state provides and what it costs to keep the lights on — widens every year.
“Our most important role as a board,” Toma said, “is not only to balance the budget, but to have a credible, multi-year, financially sustainable plan that protects our educational quality and the taxpayer investment.”
He singled out health insurance costs as the issue that most needs state attention.
“Somebody’s going to have to do something about it,” he said. “It’s creating this ever-widening gap.”
That gap exists in Rahway. It exists in Metuchen. It blew open in Edison. And it is playing out in districts across New Jersey at the same time. The state school boards association has called this spring a “perfect storm” for school budgets, and the forecast does not get better next year.
Edison, Metuchen, and Rahway have their final budget hearings scheduled for Tuesday, April 28. Check each district’s website for details.
Dive Deeper:
Edison Schools Tentative Budget
Metuchen Schools Tentative Budget
Rahway Schools Tentative Budget
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