According to Bob Lowry, deputy director for advocacy, research and communications for the New York state Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS), education has not been a primary topic of conversation during this state budget season for several reasons. For part of the past year, the outlook for the budget was more pessimistic than it turned out to be. Plus, other issues, like Medicaid cuts, commanded more attention.
“There’s only so much bandwidth for our collective attention,” Lowry told Capital Tonight.
But there are several education issues that still need to be addressed by lawmakers. For example, the state Senate and Assembly have proposed a 2% increase for schools, but under Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed budget, about two-thirds of school districts would be limited to a 1% minimum increase.
“Something that’s been striking this year is how often superintendents and other school district leaders bring up the fact that just their health insurance costs alone would fully absorb the value of such a small Foundation Aid increase,” he noted.
Lowry also hoped that lawmakers would continue to reform the Foundation Aid formula – a process that began last year with the Rockefeller Institute’s report on the issue. But the easiest, most obvious changes were made last year, including replacing outdated poverty measures. Still left to tackle are the politically tricky regional cost adjustment and what’s called the Foundation amount.
“The study behind that hasn’t been updated in over 10 years,” he said.
Last year’s enacted state budget provided $27.1 billion in Foundation Aid. This year’s budget will include even more money (we won’t know how much until the budget is passed), but Lowry is concerned that the formula no longer functions as intended.
“I think, again, there were flaws in the formula. It was a great accomplishment when it was enacted, but it’s now over 20 years old and some pieces have never been updated,” said Lowry.
Lowry also discussed the impact of an untimely state budget with Capital Tonight: All non-city districts need to finalize ballots for May school budget votes by April 24.