Public schools in New York state are primarily funded by a combination of local property taxes and funds provided by the state. There are a number of categories of this state aid. The most significant is called Foundation Aid, which is designed to be sure that every public school student in the state receives their constitutionally guaranteed “sound basic education.” The understanding is that most school districts cannot fund their educational system solely on property taxes. Therefore, the state steps in to provide the additional funds that cannot be raised locally. The formula used to determine the funding each district needs to meet this basic level was developed in 2007. It has not been changed since then.
In her budget proposal this year, Gov. Kathy Hochul proposes a major change in the way the Foundation Aid formula is implemented. For many years, New York has used something called “save harmless” when determining Foundation Aid. The basic idea is that school districts will receive at least as much aid in the upcoming year as they did in the current one. On the face of it, save harmless may not seem to make sense. It means that a school with a declining enrollment will receive at least as much aid as it has in the past. But shouldn’t it cost less to run a school with fewer students? The answer is no.
For example, let’s look at a school that is representative of many in our area. It has a student population of 275 students who are divided roughly equally across the 13 grades in the school. That means there are about 21 children in each grade. The school loses 25 students or about 9% of its population. The school now has 250 students or 19 in each grade. They still need one teacher for each elementary class. They still need secondary teachers to teach all the required classes. The building is the same size and it requires the same heat, custodial staff, administration and transportation as it did before. There are few or no reductions in expenses due to this loss in population. And yet, under the governor’s proposal, this district would lose a significant amount of funding.
The governor’s proposal would result in many of the districts in our region seeing reductions in state funding in excess of $250,000. Some are close to $1,000,000. However, there will be no similar reductions in expenses.
So, what are we to do? As I said earlier, school funding comes from the local taxpayers and from the state.
Education is often looked at as a ladder, with students ascending that ladder each year as they build on the skills learned previously. The rungs of the ladder can be seen as the local school; that is the place where the climbing actually happens. The rungs are supported by two rails. One is state funding and the other is local funding. If one of the rails is weakened, the only way to strengthen the ladder is to fix that side. You cannot make the ladder stronger by reinforcing the other side. Similarly, we cannot ask our local taxpayers to pay more in property taxes to make up for this loss in state funding.
Make no mistake — the education ladder in our region is going to get weaker if the governor’s budget is not changed. The New York state Constitution guarantees every student in the state a sound basic education. These changes will mean that our children will be denied that right.
I encourage everyone to contact their local representatives as well as the governor’s office and let them know that the proposed changes to save harmless will result in our children being denied the access to the quality educational opportunities that they need to become productive members of our society.