Every school district in Morris County has a savings account. Here is what is in yours.
New Jersey school districts are allowed to hold money in a savings account reserved for buildings. Most hold a modest amount. A few hold a great deal. This page shows the balance for all 38 districts in Morris County, measured the same way, so you can look up your own town and see where it stands.
Capital reserve balance at June 30, 2025, from the district’s audited financial report.
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Students
Cost to run the schools
For one year, 2024-25
Savings per student
Balance divided by students
What is this account?
It is called a capital reserve. By law it can only be spent on building projects listed in the district’s long range facilities plan. It cannot pay for a teacher, a program, or classroom supplies. Not one dollar of it.
Districts fill it two ways. They can budget for it, or, at the last meeting in June, the board can vote to move whatever is left unspent at the end of the year into the account. That second route is a board resolution. There is no separate approval and no ballot question.
Measured against the size of the district
A big district and a small one can’t be compared on dollars alone. So every balance here is divided by what it costs that district to run its schools for one year.
Each dot is one of the 38 districts. Further right means more money saved relative to the size of the district. Dots are stacked where districts land close together, so none are hidden. Hover or tap any dot to see which district it is.
How to read this
10% means the district holds about five weeks of its running costs in the building account. 50% means half a year. 100% would mean a full year of running the schools, sitting in savings.
The county median is 10.2%. Half the districts in Morris County are above that line and half are below it.
Two rankings, side by side
Most districts land in roughly the same place on both lists. A big district spends a lot and saves a lot. Where the two numbers pull apart is where the story usually is.
Spending rank
of 38, by what it costs to run the schools
Savings rank
of 38, by dollars in the building account
How the account has changed
Balance on June 30 of each year, from the audited financial reports. Four years is as far back as every district in the county can be shown on the same basis.
And what happened to school taxes
The levy is the total raised from property owners in the district for the schools. These figures run through the budget adopted for the current school year, so they reach further forward than the audited balances above.
School tax levy, this year
2026-27 adopted budget
Change from last year
2025-26 to 2026-27
Change over three budgets
2023-24 to 2026-27
Every district, side by side
Click any column heading to sort, or hover one to see what it means. Click a row to load that district in the sections above. Your selected district stays highlighted.
#
District
Grades
Students
Running cost
Savings
% of a year
Per student
School tax levy
Levy, 3 budgets
Debt service
What the words mean
Capital reserve
The building savings account. Restricted by state rule to capital projects in the district’s long range facilities plan. It cannot be spent on staff, programs or supplies.
Cost to run the schools
Total general fund spending for 2024-25, from the district’s audited financial report, less the pension and benefit contributions the State pays directly on the district’s behalf. That money enters and leaves the books on the same day and no district can spend it, so it is removed from every district here on the same basis. The State does the same thing in its own Taxpayers’ Guide to Education Spending.
Students
Enrollment excluding preschool. Preschool is funded through a separate State grant outside the general fund, so counting those children against a budget that does not pay for them would mix two different pots. Excluded for every district here.
School tax levy
The general fund amount raised from property owners in the district. It is the school line on your property tax bill, added up across the town. It excludes debt service.
Debt service
The amount raised from property owners this year to repay money the district borrowed for buildings. In New Jersey a district that wants to borrow normally has to put a bond question on the ballot, so voters are shown a project and a price. Building up a savings account instead requires no ballot question. Seven districts in Morris County carry no school debt at all.
Levy, 3 budgets
How much a district's school tax levy has risen across the last three adopted budgets, 2023-24 to 2026-27. New Jersey caps the annual increase at 2% with a few adjustments, so a figure well above 6% means the district used one of those adjustments or a voter-approved question.
Which 38 districts
Every district in Morris County that operates its own schools and raises its own school tax, including the three regional high school districts. It does not include the county vocational district, which serves the whole county and is funded by a county levy, or charter schools, which raise no school tax, or districts that operate no schools of their own.
Balances and spending come from each district’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for the year ended June 30, 2025, filed with the New Jersey Department of Education. Levy figures come from the audited reports and each district’s User Friendly Budget. Enrollment comes from the NJDOE School Performance Reports.
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