TOMS RIVER - Toms River Regional school board members voted Wednesday to freeze hiring of all non-essential employees — a move they hope will help keep costs down amid millions of dollars in state funding cuts.

The hiring freeze applies to all departments and positions, whether administrative, educational, custodial or in transportation.

The vote means vacant positions will go unfilled and no new positions will be created.

"There are positions where, rather than fill them, we can distribute maybe the responsibility, and possibly, that stipend," Superintendent David M. Healy told the Press after the vote.

The board already implemented a freeze in extra, non-essential budget spending, he said.

"This is related to the state aid cuts," said Healy. "This really memorializes what we've been doing all along. We've been very conscientious about rehires and re-allocations." Why is state aid important? Watch the video above to learn more.

School officials expect Toms River Regional to lose at least $70 million cumulatively over seven years in state aid. In the 2018-19 school year, state aid dropped more than $2.3 million from initial promises from the state government.

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New Jersey legislators, led by Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney, redistributed state aid among schools last summer. The rationale was to move money from purportedly "overaided" districts, where student populations had fallen, to more crowded, faster growing school districts.

Toms River Regional officials as well as other school districts similarly affected disputed the state's funding formula calculation as a result.

In response to the funding cuts, Toms River Regional school board President Russell K. Corby said the board had to take action.

"We're simply not going to have the state aid that we should have," he told the Press.

The hiring freeze will expire June 30, 2019.

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Amanda Oglesby: @OglesbyAPP; 732-557-5701; aoglesby@gannettnj.com