District overview
Bloomfield Township School District
How Bloomfield schools are paid for, who decides, and what changed in this year's budget
Where does the money come from, and what changed?
Bloomfield's $152.6 million budget for 2026-27 is paid for in roughly equal halves: $89,435,625 from the local property tax levy and $49,978,624 from state aid. For eleven straight years, from 2015-16 through 2025-26, the board raised the levy by 2 percent or less, and in the superintendent's own words modernised eleven school buildings without ever going to a bond referendum, paying for that work out of a capital reserve instead. Two things broke that pattern at once. State aid fell $1.6 million for 2025-26 and another $1,545,732 for 2026-27, because New Jersey ties most aid to how many students a district has and Bloomfield's roll has dropped by 230 students in two years. At the same time costs the board had already committed to rose about $10.4 million, led by $5 million more for health benefits and $4 million of contractual salary increases. The board closed that gap three ways: it raised the levy 4.97 percent, it cut 24 staff positions and a list of programmes, and it moved $2,044,522 out of its capital reserve to pay off debt service so that part of the tax bill could show zero.
The levy and state aid each pay about half
$89,435,625 from local taxes and $49,978,624 from state aid, of a $152,570,486 total budget. That makes Bloomfield less exposed to a thin year in Trenton than a district that runs mostly on aid, but it also means a cut in aid has to be made up locally or cut out.
Eleven flat years, then 4.97 percent
The levy rose by 2 percent or less in every year from 2015-16 to 2025-26. For 2026-27 it rises 4.97 percent, about $79.64 for every $100,000 a home is assessed at.
The debt service line is zero because of a one-time transfer
The debt-service levy falls from $2,139,154 to nothing, offset by a $2,044,522 withdrawal from capital reserve. The same reserve paid $9,063,404 towards capital projects in 2024-25 and $5,899,942 in 2025-26, and nothing in 2026-27, so buildings money is paying a debt bill this year.
Fewer students each year pulls aid down
Students on roll fell from 6,513 in October 2024 to 6,312 in October 2025, with 6,283 estimated for October 2026. Equalisation aid has fallen with it, from $41,358,971 received in 2024-25 to $37,354,468 budgeted for 2026-27.
There is no readable record of the meetings themselves
Bloomfield posts board agendas and minutes only on BoardDocs, an outside platform that cannot be collected here, and its YouTube channel has posted no board recording since 2015. Everything on this page comes from documents the district publishes about its board's work rather than from the board's own minutes.
None of this says Bloomfield is badly run. The state's own accountability review in June 2026 placed the district at 100 percent in fiscal management, governance and operations and designated it high performing for a third consecutive cycle, and the district says it stayed within its own class-size policy and met every requirement in students' individualised education programmes and 504 plans while making these cuts. The aid losses that drove the cuts are set in Trenton, not in Bloomfield.
Where the district stands
Calculated: the $89,435,625 levy against the $152,570,486 total budget, both from the adopted budget, so the ratio is context rather than a figure the district reports.
The district's Board Documents link points to BoardDocs, which returns HTTP 403 to ordinary requests on both www.boarddocs.com and go.boarddocs.com, re-checked September 30, 2026. The district's own site publishes no agendas or minutes.
From the federal NCES Common Core of Data 2025-26 preliminary directory, not a district document.
Major projects
HVAC and window replacement across the elementary schools
Funded in the 2026-27 budget and continuing from prior yearsBloomfield has been modernising its buildings out of a capital reserve rather than a bond referendum, and says it has upgraded heating, roofs, windows and security at all eleven schools over the past decade. The 2026-27 budget continues that: HVAC upgrades and window replacement at Fairview and Franklin, continuing HVAC work at Berkeley, Brookdale, Demarest and Oak View, continuing rooftop-unit replacement at Bloomfield High School, and general district-wide maintenance. What changed this year is how it is paid for. The capital reserve sent $9,063,404 to capital projects in 2024-25 and $5,899,942 in 2025-26, but nothing in 2026-27; instead $2,044,522 came out of the same reserve to pay debt service.
- Tentative budget describes eleven schools modernised without a bond referendum
- Final budget names the 2026-27 facility work school by school
Funding
Capital reserve and the general fund; the district has published no separate project cost for the 2026-27 work
Electric school bus charging station at the Demarest service centre
Proposals were due July 7, 2026; no award publishedThe board asked for design-build engineering and electrical contracting proposals to build a charging system for three electric school buses, one 16-seat and two 54-seat, at its service centre at Demarest School on Broughton Avenue. Bidders had to price engineering design, permitting, connecting to PSE&G's grid, civil work and electrical work as one not-to-exceed figure. The notice does not say what the work should cost, where the money comes from, or when the buses arrive.
- Proposals due at 11:00 AM for RFP 2627-101
Funding
Not stated in the request for proposals
New science, writing and behaviour-analysis programmes for 2026-27
Funded in the adopted 2026-27 budgetEven in a cutting year the budget adds three applied behaviour analysis classes for students who need that support, Open SciEd as the science curriculum for grades 6 to 8, and cursive writing in grades 3 to 5 to meet a new state requirement. The district describes its 2026-27 technology focus as application rather than acquisition, meaning no new purchases, and is leaning on staff mentoring and its existing assessment tools instead. This sits alongside the elimination of the Bloomfield Teacher Academy, which had trained staff.
- Final budget presentation lists the new programmes and the state mandates behind them
- School year begins under the new device policy with these programmes in place
Funding
General fund; the district has published no separate cost for these programmes
Recent news
Built from what the Bloomfield Board of Education publishes on its own website: the tentative and final 2026-27 budget presentations given at the March 24 and April 28, 2026 board meetings, the advertised budget and public-hearing notice, the user-friendly budget summaries for 2026-27 and 2025-26, the June 2026 state accountability letter and the 2023 accountability presentation, the request for proposals for an electric school bus charging station, the seven employee contracts on its contracts page, its August 2026 board goal-setting material, its 2026 meeting schedule and safety drill material, and its current policies on student device use and generative artificial intelligence from the Strauss Esmay policy portal. The board's agendas and minutes are published only on BoardDocs, which cannot be collected, so nothing here rests on a meeting record.
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