Public schools in New York state rely heavily on state funding. How much? Consider that education spending accounts for roughly $1 of every $4 in the state budget.
The biggest pot of money — which lands it at the center of most political debates, including this year — is called “Foundation Aid.” For the Rochester City School District, it amounts to more than $550 million.
“At issue is the Foundation Aid formula, which is used to determine how much money each school district gets. It’s been in place since 2007 and is meant to ensure needier districts receive more state money, as opposed to wealthier districts that have larger property-tax bases to draw from.”
That’s a reporting excerpt from our colleagues at WNYC.
Here’s the problem. Then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer made lots of promises back in 2007. Then the Great Recession happened. So did that whole episode with Client 9. Exit Spitzer. Hochul, though, fulfilled those promises.
Then during the last state budget session, she sought to change the formula.
Namely, she wanted to do away with a long-standing "hold harmless” policy that ensures districts get at least as much aid as they did the year before. Why? Because it ignores population shifts, which means districts like Rochester that have seen steady enrollment declines don’t see a corresponding adjustment in funding.
Hochul’s plan would have reduced state aid to about half of New York’s 673 public school districts, according to WNYC. That includes four of the 18 districts in Monroe County: West Irondequoit, Hilton, Penfield and Webster, according to the governor’s budget documents. It also includes seven of the nine districts in Ontario County, where only Geneva and Phelps-Clifton Springs might see increases.
Not surprisingly, she got pushback. And she backed off – sort of.
The compromise kept school districts whole but tweaked the inflation factor and commissioned a study of the formula to be led by the Rockefeller Institute of Government, a public policy think-tank that's part of the SUNY system, with input from state education officials. The results are to be incorporated into Hochul’s budget proposal next year, in 2025, when the debate will begin anew.
