State adjustment aid of $20.4 million fell to zero while payments to charter schools rose to $76.5 million

What happened

Trenton's state filings show two lines moving in opposite directions. Adjustment aid, worth $20,438,575 in 2023-24 and still budgeted at that level for 2024-25, is zero in both 2025-26 and 2026-27. Over the same period the budgeted transfer of funds to charter schools rises from $68,072,280 to $76,512,681, about a sixth of the general fund, after $69,000,157 actually paid in 2024-25 for 3,620 Trenton pupils in nine charter schools. Enrolment on the rolls fell from 17,144 in October 2024 to 16,619.5 in October 2025, and the comparative cost per pupil rose from $19,149 in 2023-24 to $26,675 budgeted for 2026-27, a rise of 39 percent in three years. Employee benefits move from 27.7 percent of salaries to 34.35 percent.

Why it matters to families

These are the two forces squeezing everything else in Trenton: a block of state aid that has gone, and a charter bill that keeps growing while the district's own enrolment falls. Together they explain why per-pupil cost can rise sharply at the same time as posts are being abolished.

The evidence

The 2025-26 filing records 'Adjustment Aid 10-3178 20,438,575 0 0', and the 2026-27 filing records the charter transfer at $76,512,681 and 'Total Budgetary Comparative Per Pupil Cost $19,149 $21,048 $24,083 $26,656 $26,675'.

The source