A top Senate Democrat is advancing a bill that could force some of New Jersey’s more than 600 school districts to merge or share services in a bid to rein in the rising costs of education and the property taxes that fund them.

School consolidation can save districts money by reducing administrative costs as well as the cost of professional services, such as those provided by lawyers and engineers. But Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Monmouth), the House Education Committee chairman, said state efforts to encourage mergers have met with little interest, including in districts with declining enrollment and flat costs.

“We’re going to look at what we can do to bring in regionalization and shared services to see if we can maintain the high quality of education that New Jersey has, but at the same time reduce the cost to the taxpayers and save money,” he told the New Jersey Monitor. “We can no longer run 600 individual school districts.”

Regionalizing schools has long been a goal of state lawmakers seeking to reduce property taxes, but relatively few districts have opted to merge with neighboring ones, and school funding remains a major cost driver at both the local and state levels.

In fiscal year 2022, $17 billion of the more than $32.2 billion collected by cities and counties in property taxes went to schools, according to statistics kept by the Department of Community Affairs.

New Jersey’s current $56.7 billion state budget includes about $11.7 billion in school aid, the single largest spending amount in the state’s fiscal year 2025 budget.

The details of Gopal’s plan remain unclear. The senator said it could include regionalization ballot initiatives to show the property tax savings such mergers could provide, or mandates that districts share services rather than forcing them to consolidate, but mandatory regionalization was also an option.

“We need to put everything on the table,” Gopal said. “We need to say how do we continue and grow the quality of education in New Jersey, support our teachers and professionals, but also figure out how can we share some of those services to reduce some of the professional costs.”

The proposal is certain to face opposition, particularly from affluent neighborhoods with less affluent neighbors, and its passage could be blocked by resistance within state government.

Gov. Phil Murphy, who has generally supported school mergers in the past, said he was “not thrilled” about forced consolidation and warned that home rule — a constitutional framework that gives local governments broad authority to administer municipal services, including schools — could limit such efforts.

“I want to encourage districts, not block districts,” he said during a news conference after an unrelated event Friday, adding: “If there’s an opportunity to stay excellent, keep our pride high, give kids the best education in America — which we’re doing now — and find a way to do it more efficiently, I’m open to that.”

The recent school consolidation efforts have been voluntary, with the state passing legislation in 2022 that expanded grants to districts to study the feasibility of regionalization efforts. Few districts, mostly small ones, have taken action to explore such mergers.

Gopal said lawmakers will work to ensure districts participate in decisions on regionalization.

“It will be with a lot of local involvement. We are not trying to overdo anything. We will be involved,” he said.

Gopal said he hopes the consolidation bill will be drafted in October or November, meaning it would come after separate legislation to change New Jersey’s school funding formula is introduced in mid-September.

The education funding bill could include incentives for regionalization and service-sharing agreements, but for now those proposals are being considered separately.

Some New Jersey districts lost state school aid under a 2018 law that phases out aid intended to keep the school system afloat after the state enacted its current funding formula in 2008, and some districts continue to lose aid as enrollment declines.

Regionalizing schools could help stabilize budgets in such districts, but consolidation has been an option that has been explored for years but rarely pursued at the time.

“This is the beginning of a conversation that I think desperately needs to happen in New Jersey,” Gopal said. “Everybody loves the idea of ​​consolidation. They just don’t want it in their backyard. It’s like everybody hates Congress but always votes for their congressman.”