School aid ‘adjustment’ assailed at Saratoga forum

Nicole Clarke knew the state’s Gap Elimination Adjustment had affected Galway’s schools, but had no idea how badly until she attended a district meeting on the aid cuts in 2013.

The mother of two small children quickly learned many programs she thought were insulated from cuts were facing reductions or outright elimination — a math teacher, physics classes and all summer school classes. This realization, however, wasn’t nearly as jarring as learning there was no end in sight for the draconian cuts.

“I knew there had been cuts going on over the years and was aware of it, but when I got there and heard the extent of the cuts, my jaw dropped,” she recalled. “In my mind, I was thinking ‘This is so drastic — this must be a blip.’ Then I got there and learned it’s not a blip. It’s been going on for years.”

Clarke started a letter-writing campaign to overturn the cuts she saw as inequitable and with no end. And on Thursday, she continued that advocacy as part of a panel of speakers calling on the state to eliminate the GEA.

Dubbed Stand Up for Upstate Schools, the forum at Saratoga Springs High School drew a crowd of roughly 1,000, which packed the auditorium and cheered speakers as they spoke against cuts to state aid. The event served as a rallying call for those living in the Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES district to demand a restoration of funding so area schools can continue to provide ample opportunities to students.

“One thing’s for sure: Just about every district in this region has reduced program opportunities for kids or will have to do so in the very near future,” said James Dexter, the local BOCES superintendent.

Implemented in 2010 amid the Great Recession, the GEA was intended to close a $10 billion state budget deficit. The adjustment took a portion of the state’s funding shortfall and split it among New York’s 700-plus school districts based on a formula and then reduced state aid to each accordingly.

But with a $6.2 billion surplus now anticipated, many school leaders believe it’s time to end the adjustment, or, at the very least, start a gradual reduction.

“We’re hoping that our legislator will at least be able to lay out for us some kind of plan for an overall reduction in GEA, even if it’s over a period of time,” said Michael Piccirillo, superintendent of the Saratoga Springs City School District, which has lost over $20 million in aid so far. “Give us some certainty.”

Cindy Bartlett-Murray, a social studies teacher now working at Queensbury Middle School, was among those who fell prey to the adjustment. Her position at Glens Falls High School was among those slashed because of state aid reductions.

Bartlett-Murray said communities need to realize how badly the cuts are affecting districts. If they wait until positions or programs are lost, it’ll be to late, she said.

“The biggest piece that was missing was our reaction,” she said. “We always wonder and worry about funds and schools, but when those funds are actually cut by the state, it’s too late to react.”

Bob Lowry, deputy director of the state Council of School Superintendents, urged communities to compare the opportunities students have now with those of the past. He said a prevalent concern among teachers is that students of the future won’t get the same level of education.

“That’s what I’ve heard from educators, that the kids in the future will never have opportunities as good as the ones in the past have had,” he said.

As a senior attending the Warrenburg Central School District, Allison Lanfear has watched the cuts first hand. With her district having lost $4 million in funding since 2010, she said programs and electives that help seniors get jobs out of high school have evaporated.

“We need to make sure we still have and can still maintain the programs for kids that want a career after school,” she said.

Losing electives also affects students later in their educational career, said Kristine Duffy, president of the State University of New York at Adirondack. She said reductions at the high school level can leave students struggling to find a clear path once they get to college.

“The more exposure students have to a variety of courses, a variety of opportunities will help to set the direction a student can take when they leave high school,” she said. “Having options for students — having a breadth of options in high school — is really in our minds what makes students that much more college-ready.”

The programs often sacrificed by cash-strapped districts are also the ones that sometimes produce skilled workers for local companies, said Peggy Murphy, director of human resources for Espy Manufacturing and Electronics Corp. She said having a trained local workforce is highly advantageous because it means the company doesn’t have to spend money to bring skilled workers in from abroad.

“I want to be able to work with kids locally, and I want them to have the skill sets I need coming in the door and not have to worry about training them,” she said. “But there’s a skill gap. There’s a skill gap in a lot of areas, and I’m not the only employer that has it.”

Legislation is making its way through the state Assembly that would eliminate the GEA. On Tuesday, freshman Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner, D-Round Lake, who attended Thursday’s forum, proposed a bill that would eliminate the adjustment in the state budget and provide school districts with the full amount of aid generated by all existing formulas.

“The state has been slowly reducing the amount owed to school districts, but enough is enough. It’s time we completely eliminate the GEA,” she said.

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