Education groups urge more state education funds

A coalition of education groups on Monday called on state lawmakers to boost education funding $2.2 billion in next year’s state budget.

The funding request includes a projected $1.7 billion in across-the-board cost increases for schools and another $500 million earmarked for specific initiatives.

Schenectady’s state lawmakers and its top school official on Monday expressed cautious optimism but differing conceptions of the best path toward more education funding.

The New York State Educational Conference Board — a coalition of the state’s seven major education groups — laid out its funding request at a news conference Monday morning at the Capitol.

“We don’t want to exaggerate this,” said John Yagielski, the coalition’s chairman and a former Schenectady and Niskayuna schools superintendent. “We wanted to do the most quality estimate we can do.”

The proposal calls for $1.7 billion to cover increased salaries, health insurance and other school costs, and another $500 million to support specific initiatives, including expanded prekindergarten access and support to the state’s “struggling” schools, including Schenectady’s Lincoln and Hamilton elementary schools.

The group called on lawmakers to pay $434 million to end the Gap Elimination Adjustment, a funding “take-back” from mostly moderate-income and affluent districts, and use more than $1 billion to bolster the state’s Foundation Aid funding formula, which takes into account poverty and other factors that would benefit Schenectady and other low-income, high-minority districts.

Moreover, the proposal aims to set a date for lawmakers to make up a $4.4 billion shortfall in foundation funding, phasing in the payments within three or four years. And it asks lawmakers to consider setting a concrete tax cap of 2 percent, rather than letting it fluctuate with inflation each year.

The group projects a tax cap that could land at 0 percent. That could prevent districts from raising adequate funding from school property taxes, they said. For that reason, they argue, the state has a “constitutional obligation” to make up the difference in funding.

“That means we are not going to have local dollars to offset the normal costs,” Yagielski said.

Schenectady City School District Superintendent Laurence Spring said increased formula funding could be a boon to Schenectady schools. He estimated the district would receive more than $60 million more if the state fully funded the foundation formula — more than $20 million of which could be used to cut local school taxes.

The other funding, Spring said, would go to bolstering mental health and literacy interventions for Schenectady’s youngest students; intensive academic coaching to keep middle-school students on track; and internship and other job-training opportunities for older students.

Spring also pointed to funding inequities in the way the state doles out education dollars as especially disturbing. Under his leadership, Schenectady schools have filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice alleging state funding disparities fall along racial and economic divides.

“While we spend more per pupil than any other state, we are one of the least equitable in that spending … ” Spring said. “When you look at achievement disparities, it’s in the places that we are spending the least.”

Local lawmakers agreed education funding would be a top issue during next year’s legislative session, but didn’t lay out clear details about what a compromise to accomplish increased funding might look like.

Assemblyman Phil Steck, D-Colonie, said he supports fully funding the foundation formula as soon as possible and has supported proposals to generate money to do so with a sales tax tied to the sale of stocks and bonds. He also supported the education coalition’s tax cap proposal.

“You can’t fully fund things without revenue,” Steck said. “You can’t have a tax cap unless the state is willing to take a larger role in education funding.”

State Sen. Hugh Farley, R-Niskayuna, said “education aid has always been a high priority for Senate Republicans” and that it would play a major role in budget negotiations with the governor and Assembly. But he did not provide specifics about what kind of increase he would like to see or where the money would come from.

Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara, D-Rotterdam, said if lawmakers truly made funding education a priority, coming up with the dollars to provide that support wouldn’t be a problem.

“Let’s take the money we need to make education a priority, and let’s put that at the top of the list of things that get funded first,” he said.

Categories: News, Schenectady County