Five years after Trenton let go, Paterson's board faces a $71 million reckoning
PATERSON—The vote to close School 3 happened at 9:15 PM on a Thursday. Of the nine board members, seven said yes. Two wanted to wait and see if the money might come through.
It didn't.
That was last June. The building is still sitting there on Market Street, asbestos ceiling tiles and all, while 302 kids ride buses to three other schools and the district sends an unspent $3.5 million back to the State. They simply couldn't make the renovation pencil out.
Last week, the Board voted on school closures again, this time with four elementary schools on the block. This time they voted 6-3 to proceed. The case highlights the difficult position of the Paterson Board of Education. The district faces the pincers: simultaneously dealing with dropping enrollment while charter schools eat up 22 cents on the public dollar.
Local Control and the Charter Challenge
Until 2021, Paterson Public Schools were managed by the State Board of Education, which took over the district in 1991 following financial issues and scandals. Governor Murphy called it "self-determination" when the State Board voted unanimously to hand Paterson back to Paterson after nearly thirty years of Trenton's control. At the time, the state apologized for the failure of the lengthy takeover, and there was hope for the district's future. Five years, three superintendents, and one governor later, the self-determined are staring at a potential $71 million hole in next year's budget.
They have until July 1 to fill it or cut the costs.
June Gray, the business administrator, stood up in February and told the Board what they already knew: "No remaining safety nets." The district burned the $38 million in one-time revenue just to get to this April. Now they're looking at up to 200 layoffs, program cuts, tax hikes and the kind of political math that breaks calculators.
The enrollment numbers tell part of the story. Paterson enrolled about 25,000 students in 2014, a number that has since dropped to 20,493. But the budget's bigger than ever at $852 million, because the money follows the students out the door to the charters. Paterson’s charter schools serve an estimated 8,888 students, costing the district $188 million in pass-through funding that flows from the state treasury to the city to the charters. Meanwhile, the school board keeps the lights on in half-empty buildings built for the boom years.
No Assistance From Washington
The feds aren't helping. March 30 was the hard deadline to liquidate any remaining ESSER balances: money from the pandemic that was supposed to fix the HVAC units at School 5 before the stairs started crumbling. The district got $12.25 million in the first allocation, granted in 2020, which they planned to use for infrastructure. But supply chains failed and the money sat unused. Last year the Trump administration moved the deadline up from September to March. Now it's gone.
The Board still has $8.6 million left in capital reserves, and they voted on March 4 to start spending it. $1.9 million was allocated for HVAC and $352,000 to fix the stairs at School 5, plus emergent work at Schools 6 and 16. But by spending their reserves the Board is essentially paying for immediate maintenance to long-term detriment . The contracting crew will do the work. The board will pay them. Then the board will pray that nothing else breaks before June 30.
Lawsuit to Rescue Funding in the Works
In the meantime, they're suing. Rosie Grant from the Paterson Education Fund and Superintendent Laurie Newell signed onto a federal case in February, with Democracy Forward representing them pro bono. The suit aims to stop the U.S. Department of Education from clawing back $7.9 million in community schools grants. That money was originally promised for wraparound services, mental health, and other things you need in a city like Paterson. Especially when you're teaching kids who saw the ceiling fall in at their old school.
That collapse occurred at the 124-year-old School 3 in August 2023. It brought asbestos exposure risks and displaced 302 kids from their school building, though it fortunately happened in the middle of summer break when the building was empty. The district had just $3.5 million allocated to renovate the building, which included HVAC, fire alarms and new lights. But with the roof collapsed and enrollment declining, the board looked at the cost projections and voted to walk away.
Joel Ramirez, the board president since January, has been saying for months that the district has local governance authority. He's right. They meet twice a month at the Holland Annex and vote on curriculum and contracts and capital expenditures just like any other board. They approved the preliminary budget 7-2 in March. But financial challenges test the limits of that local authority. Kenneth Simmons, one of the no votes on both the budget and the school closure plan, asked about the worst-case scenario for layoffs. They told him: 200.
The teachers are already leaving. Not in the most dramatic numbers, but slowly. The district has a one-year retention rate of about 86 percent in 2022-2023, according to the state's own report. That figure is 2.5 points below the state average. The district also has 140 vacant positions as of 2024. That year the Board wanted to save money by switching their health insurance from Blue Cross to Aetna, but the union president warned them that the move would drive people away even faster. He added that some teachers were interviewing for other jobs from their cars during lunch breaks.
The charters keep growing. The buildings keep aging. The money keeps flowing out the door to Trenton, then back, then out again to Renaissance and Community Charter and the rest. The board makes the cuts. The board closes the schools. The board administers the austerity.
That's what local control looks like when the state aid formula breaks down and the district faces an enrollment cliff at the same time as a federal grant freeze. The handover was in 2021. Five years later and the layoffs loom.
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Sources
• NJ Department of Education, “Murphy Administration Announces the Return of Full Local Control to Paterson Public Schools” (January 6, 2021)
• Paterson Board of Education Meeting livestreams (March-April 2026)
• TapInto Paterson, “Paterson Board of Education Votes to Permanently Close School 3 After Asbestos Discovery, Structural Concerns” (June 6, 2025)
• TapInto Paterson, “Paterson School Board Approves Phase 3 Reorganization Amid Outcry” (April 2, 2026)
• NorthJersey.com, “Raise taxes? Cut academic programs? Big budget gap for Paterson schools” (February 12, 2026)
• NJ Department of Education District Performance Report for Paterson Public Schools, 2023-2024 school year
• NJEdReport, “Paterson Struggles With Keeping Teachers, Students Too” (February 21, 2024)
• NJ Spotlight News broadcast (April 2, 2025)
• NJDOE, American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER) Allocations, 2020-2021
• TapInto Paterson, “Paterson Joins Federal Lawsuit Challenging $132M Cut to Community Schools Grants” (March 1, 2026)
• CBS New York, “Paterson Public School No. 3 abruptly closed after 124-year-old building deemed unsafe” (August 17, 2023)
• Paterson Press, NorthJersey.com, “Will Paterson school district be cutting 200 jobs?” (March 26, 2026)
• NJ Schools Development Authority Bid Records (March 2026)