by Alex Brooks
The Hoosick Falls School Board held a Budget Workshop on Thursday, March 6. Superintendent Ken Facin began the meeting speaking to the School Board about inequities in State aid to schools in New York State, focusing on a policy mechanism called the Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA). This was introduced by Governor Paterson in 2010 as a remedy for the State’s $10 billion budget deficit that year. It subtracted money from State aid to schools in order to balance the overall State budget.
[private]Over the last four years, about $8.4 billion has been withheld from schools under the provisions of the GEA. The Hoosick Falls District has lost $6,732,216 over the last four years because of the GEA, according to a handout provided by Facin. The result is that the basic operating aid that the State provides to school districts, called “foundation aid,” has fallen significantly. Foundation Aid to the Hoosick Falls District was $10,260,393 in the 2008-09 school year, and proposed Foundation Aid for the upcoming 2014-15 school year is $9,430,356, a reduction of more than $830,000 over the last five years.
The good part of this, perhaps, is that it has forced school districts to work hard at devising ways to operate in less expensive, more efficient ways. Facin said the Hoosick Falls School District has reduced its workforce by nearly fifty people, including faculty, staff and administrators, and it has done so while at the same time raising educational results. But in a world of rising costs, continued inadequate increases in State foundation aid give school administrators the nasty choice between raising the local tax levy or cutting things from the schools that shouldn’t be cut.
Facin points out that the GEA was supposed to be a temporary expedient to deal with an emergency situation in 2010. Five years later, the State has recovered from that crisis and is projecting a budget surplus this year, but the State has not even begun to phase out the GEA.
Facin said solving this problem does not need to involve the State increasing its spending on education. A study by Rutgers Professor Bruce Baker and others found that New York State’s spending on education is generous compared to other states but that the way it is distributed is very inequitable. An addendum to that same study listed the Hoosick Falls District as one of the 50 School Districts in New York State that have been shortchanged the most by the inequitable distribution of funding. “The inequities are vast. Our community deserves better,” said Facin.
Facin urged the Board to keep the tax levy increase this year under the 1.44% cap. He said, “The taxpayers of this District have supported us through all the difficulties we have faced in recent years. They have done everything we have asked. There is only one reason we are having trouble now and that is the State of New York.”
Lawsuit Possible
The Alliance For Quality Education and its partners, which came to Hoosick Falls two weeks ago on a fact finding mission, is now threatening to sue the State if inequities in State funding are not redressed in this year’s budget. Facin said, “If they go ahead with this legal action, there is a good chance that they will ask us to be one of the schools bringing the law suit.” Facin said in that case he will recommend to the Board that they sign on as one of the plaintiffs.
The Latest Budget
The School administration did have good news about the development of their budget for next year. The first draft of the 2014-15 budget, released in mid-February, showed a local tax levy increase of 9.68%, and the latest release, dated March 6, shows an increase of 5.88%. District Business Administrator Pam Hatfield said two big things had allowed the District to nearly cut in half its budget shortfall. The biggest thing was that the increase for health insurance premiums for next year was lower than expected, which allowed a reduction in the budget for health insurance of $232,566. Hatfield had originally projected an increase of 8.9% but is now expecting an increase of 3.3%.
The other budget reduction was a $75,000 savings from a reduction of planned purchases of testing services from an outside vendor. Facin said the District can do those tests “in-house.”
Superintendent Facin reiterated his determination not to reduce staff or programs or to exceed the 1.44% cap on the increase in the local tax levy.[/private]