As New Jersey moves to take greater control of the Lakewood School District, blaming local officials for years of financial mismanagement, longtime Lakewood community activist Aaron Hirsch today filed a Petition of Appeal with the State Commissioner of Education raising a question that strikes at the heart of the State's narrative: If Trenton has tightly controlled Lakewood's finances for more than twelve years, shouldn't the State be held accountable for the District's worsening financial condition?
The 14-page petition, obtained and reviewed by FAA News, names the Lakewood Board of Education and State Fiscal Monitor Louise Davis as respondents, challenging not only Davis's refusal to authorize hazardous-route transportation for nonpublic school students, but also what Hirsch alleges is the State's longstanding failure to fulfill its own statutory responsibilities.
The filing comes just one day after FAA News reported that Larry Loigman had filed a separate petition with the Commissioner of Education challenging the State Monitor and seeking to ban the LSTA.
Together, the two petitions place renewed attention on the State's management of Lakewood's finances and its authority over decisions affecting thousands of local schoolchildren.
For years, Lakewood's financial difficulties have been the subject of controversy, with State officials raising concerns about the District's budgeting practices and financial management.
But Hirsch's petition challenges the premise that responsibility for the District's worsening financial condition rests exclusively with local officials.
Since April 2014, Lakewood has operated under a State Fiscal Monitor appointed pursuant to N.J.S.A. 18A:7A-55.
Under that statute, the Monitor possesses sweeping authority over the District's fiscal operations, including the power to review expenditures, approve financial transactions, direct budgetary changes, and override decisions of the elected Board of Education.
Hirsch argues that this authority makes it impossible to separate the District's financial deterioration from the State's own oversight.
According to figures cited in the petition, Lakewood received approximately $4.5 million in advance State aid during the 2014–2015 school year.
That amount increased to $28.2 million in 2018–2019, $54.5 million in 2020–2021, and $80 million in 2024–2025.
For the current 2026–2027 school year, an additional advance of approximately $132.8 million is projected.
By the conclusion of the 2025–2026 school year, the District had received approximately $360.1 million in cumulative State aid advances.
Those figures raise an obvious question: How has Lakewood's reliance on State financial assistance grown so dramatically while the District has remained under continuous State fiscal supervision?
Hirsch contends that the State cannot exercise extensive authority over the District's financial decisions for twelve years and then place responsibility for the resulting financial crisis entirely on the elected Board.
Perhaps the most consequential allegation in Hirsch's petition concerns a statutory obligation that he contends the State has failed to fulfill throughout the monitorship.
Under N.J.S.A. 18A:7A-55(b)(3), a State Fiscal Monitor is required to ensure the development and implementation of an acceptable plan addressing the deficiencies that led to the Monitor's appointment.
The law specifically requires that the plan include measurable benchmarks and corrective activities.
Yet, according to Hirsch, no such plan has been produced despite more than twelve years of State oversight.
Hirsch submitted an Open Public Records Act request seeking the required plan, any strategy for achieving a balanced budget without continued State aid advances, and records assessing whether corrective measures had been implemented.
On October 21, 2026, the District responded that it had no responsive records.
Hirsch argues that this raises serious questions about whether the State has complied with one of its most fundamental statutory responsibilities.
The petition further alleges that the District's dependence on advance State aid has created a cycle in which repayment obligations from prior years contribute to subsequent budget shortfalls, requiring still larger advances.
For the current school year alone, the District's scheduled repayment of previous advances is approximately $35.4 million.
Rather than demonstrating measurable progress toward financial independence, Hirsch argues, the District has become increasingly dependent on State assistance while operating under the State's financial supervision.
Hirsch's petition also highlights the extraordinary powers exercised by the State Monitor over the elected Board of Education.
For example, in April 2025, Davis overrode the Board's decision rejecting the proposed 2025–2026 budget and directed that it be submitted to the county.
In June 2025, she overrode another Board resolution concerning State and federal funds and directed the issuance of payroll.
More recently, Davis rejected two Board resolutions authorizing hazardous-route transportation for nonpublic school students.
These actions, Hirsch argues, demonstrate that the State Monitor is far more than a passive observer of the District's financial decisions.
Yet, during the Board's October 28, 2026 public meeting, Davis reportedly stated:
"I provide oversight for the decisions made by the administration and the board. I do not make those decisions for them."
She also stated:
"It's not my duty to tell you how to run the district."
According to Hirsch's petition, Davis acknowledged that the District's financial problems had not been addressed by "powers above us," identifying those powers as "the department, the legislature."
Hirsch argues that these statements expose a fundamental contradiction.
The State has the statutory authority to intervene in the District's financial decisions, override elected officials, and prevent expenditures it considers inappropriate.
But when the District's financial problems continue to grow, Hirsch contends, responsibility cannot simply be shifted back to the local Board.
The petition also raises questions about the growing cost of State oversight.
Hirsch points to the elimination of the Board's former attorney, whose services reportedly cost approximately $600,000 annually.
But according to Hirsch, the District now employs in-house legal counsel, retains six outside law firms authorized to receive up to approximately $495,000, and pays for four State Monitors at a combined budgeted cost of approximately $500,000.
The monitors' contracts provide for compensation of $125 per hour, with each permitted to work up to 32 hours weekly.
That places the combined outside legal authorizations and State Monitor budget at nearly $1 million — before accounting for the salaries of in-house legal personnel.
Although the authorized legal amounts do not necessarily reflect actual expenditures, Hirsch argues that the figures raise legitimate questions about whether the State's oversight arrangements are reducing costs.
Under N.J.S.A. 18A:7A-55(f), the District itself is responsible for paying the State Monitors.
In other words, Lakewood taxpayers are funding the State's financial oversight operation even as the District's dependence on advance State aid continues to increase.
Hirsch also challenges what he describes as another longstanding failure by the State to comply with its statutory obligations.
Under N.J.S.A. 18A:7A-55(b)(7), a State Fiscal Monitor must meet with the Board of Education at least quarterly to discuss the actions that resulted in State oversight and provide education and training intended to correct those deficiencies.
According to the petition, Davis acknowledged during the October 28 Board meeting that the required meetings and training had never been implemented in Lakewood.
The petition quotes Davis as stating that the requirement "hasn't been provided in 14 years," adding:
"I haven't been asked before."
Hirsch argues that the law imposes this responsibility on the Monitor regardless of whether Board members specifically request the training.
He further points out that the obligation appears in the Monitor's contracts, including Davis's current agreement.
In response to an OPRA request seeking records of the required training, the District stated on November 10 that no documents were found.
The petition also raises concerns about compliance with the Monitor's statutory reporting obligations, including monthly public reports concerning the District's financial condition.
For Hirsch, these allegations reinforce the broader question underlying his challenge: If the State has been responsible for overseeing and correcting Lakewood's financial deficiencies, has it actually performed the duties the Legislature assigned to it?
The controversy also brings renewed attention to Lakewood's unusual educational demographics and the structural challenges facing the District.
According to Hirsch, approximately 50,000 children in Lakewood attend nonpublic schools, with their families bearing the costs of their education.
He argues that these families save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars annually by educating their children outside the public school system.
However, Hirsch contends that New Jersey's school funding formula does not adequately account for the District's exceptionally large nonpublic school population and the transportation and other services Lakewood must provide.
Rather than addressing what Hirsch describes as a structural funding deficiency, the State has repeatedly provided advances of future State aid to cover annual budget shortfalls.
Those advances must subsequently be repaid, placing additional pressure on future budgets.
Hirsch's position is that the State's funding structure, combined with years of financial oversight that have failed to resolve the District's underlying problems, deserves far greater scrutiny.
The State, he argues, cannot continue relying on temporary financial advances while leaving the structural funding problem unresolved.
The immediate controversy that prompted Hirsch's petition concerns Davis's refusal to authorize hazardous-route transportation for nonpublic school students.
According to the filing, the Lakewood School District has designated approximately 30 roadways as hazardous, based on determinations made by the Lakewood Police Department.
The District nevertheless continues providing hazardous-route transportation to approximately 1,173 public school students who live within the statutory walking distance of their schools.
Nonpublic school students who must travel along the same hazardous roads, however, are not receiving comparable transportation at District expense.
Hirsch argues that the distinction is arbitrary and unreasonable.
"The hazard is a condition of the road. It does not change with the school a child attends," the petition states.
The Board of Education twice attempted to authorize hazardous-route transportation for nonpublic school students, adopting resolutions on September 9 and September 23.
Davis rejected both resolutions, citing the District's financial condition.
Yet, according to the petition, the Board's September 23 decision to reinstate general courtesy busing for public school students was permitted to proceed.
Those routes subsequently resumed at an annual cost of approximately $211,500.
Hirsch questions how the State Monitor could permit non-mandated courtesy transportation for public school students while refusing safety-based transportation for nonpublic school students because of insufficient funding.
"A reason that applies equally to both groups cannot rationally justify funding non-mandated transportation for one and denying it to the other," the petition argues.
Hirsch also cites a prior decision of the Commissioner of Education holding that hazardous-route transportation policies must be applied equitably.
The petition does not argue that every student living within the statutory walking distance is automatically entitled to free transportation.
Rather, Hirsch contends that once a district chooses to provide hazardous-route transportation, it cannot arbitrarily distinguish between students facing the same road hazards.
Hirsch brings the petition both individually and as the parent of two sixth-grade children attending nonpublic schools.
He alleges that his children's routes include hazardous roadways such as Chestnut Street, Vermont Avenue, Vine Avenue and Route 9, including stretches without sidewalks.
He states that he paid $675 per child for transportation during the current school year rather than have them walk those routes.
Hirsch is asking the Commissioner of Education to overturn Davis's September 23 and October 27 decisions denying hazardous-route transportation for nonpublic school students.
He also seeks an order requiring the District's hazardous-route transportation policy to be applied equitably to similarly situated public and nonpublic school students.
Additionally, Hirsch requests reimbursement of the $675 transportation fee he paid for each of his two children.
But the petition's requested relief extends considerably further.
Hirsch asks the Commissioner to direct the State Monitor to develop and implement the financial recovery plan required by N.J.S.A. 18A:7A-55(b)(3), including measurable benchmarks and a timeline for achieving a balanced budget without continued advance State aid.
He also seeks public presentation of that plan, regular progress reports, and compliance with the statutory requirements for quarterly Board meetings and training.
As FAA News reported yesterday, Larry Loigman has also filed a separate petition with the Commissioner of Education challenging the State Monitor.
Meanwhile, a separate proceeding concerning broader State intervention in the Lakewood School District remains pending before the Office of Administrative Law, with Administrative Law Justice Scarola this week denying the Board’s motion to dismiss and permitting the State’s Order to Show Cause to proceed on the merits.
Hirsch's petition introduces a significant question into that ongoing controversy.
For years, the public debate has focused heavily on the financial decisions of Lakewood's elected Board of Education.
But Hirsch argues that any serious examination of the District's financial crisis must also account for the State's own role.
After all, the State has maintained fiscal oversight since 2014, possesses broad authority to override local financial decisions, and is legally required to ensure the development of a plan to correct the deficiencies that prompted its intervention.
Yet the District's reliance on State advances has grown dramatically, and Hirsch alleges that the required financial recovery plan has never been produced.
The central question is no longer simply what Lakewood's elected officials have done wrong. It is in fact what the State has done — or failed to do — during more than twelve years of financial control.
Hirsch's petition asks the Commissioner of Education to confront that question directly.
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