Summary of Budget Proposed by Governor from NYSCOSS

Summary of Budget Proposed by Governor from NYSCOSS
New York State Council of School Superintendents
LEGISLATION BULLETIN
Issue 99-02 January 27, 1998

GOVERNOR’S 1999 EXECUTIVE BUDGET

Schools Take a Beating

The Governor advanced an ambitious agenda of
educational change for the 1999 session with his
1999-2000 State Budget proposal. The document
fleshes out a number of the State of the State
proposals as well as pro-viding somewhat detailed
information about spending initiatives for the
upcoming state fiscal year.

Overall education spending is projected to
increase by $154 million, $80 million less than
the rate of inflation and $531 million less than
what the Regents said would be necessary just to
continue the education formulas enacted by the
Legislature last year. Even the Governor’s public
relations documents described his budget as
“reducing the growth in education costs by $325
million.”

To sell this parsimonious budget, the Governor has
relied on previous increases enacted by the
Legislature to note that “the past 3 years of
school aid increases total $1.64 billion” and that
including $1.2 billion in STAR, “the state will
support 45.3% of total local education costs in
1999-2000.”

State Aid Changes
=>Operating Aid — Would provide for a minimum
increase of 1.25% and a maximum increase of 3% of
(likely) “Aids subject to Transition”;
=>Limited Building Aid Increase — Building Aid
grows by $120 million, significantly less than the
$200 million predicted by SED. Initiatives
in-clude elimination of save-harmless for future
building projects, Dormitory Authority funding
(Wicks law exemption);
=>BOCES Aid Phase-out — Proposes cutting BOCES Aid
by $80 million (20%) as the first step in phasing
out BOCES Aid altogether;
=>Educational Improvement Block Grant — Numerous
categorical programs totaling more than $ are
eliminated. In their place is a block grant for
$200 million.
=>Small Cities Aid Phase-out — Save-Harmless
phase-out for small city schools is reinstated,
cutting $6 million;
=>Special Education “Reforms” — 1999-00 Aid would
be capped at 1998-99 levels. Starting in 2000-01
aid would be based on a strict percent of
enrollment adjusted for poverty (similar to what
the Regents proposed 2 years ago). Sum-mer program
costs would be reimbursed under the same formula.
Schools would be responsible for conducting
evaluations of preschool disabled children and
would bear the local cost if a provider is
selected as the evaluator;

Property Tax Initiatives
=>Cap on School Spending — Based on a 2-year
aver-age not to exceed 4% or 140% of the CPI,
whichever is less. Growth for such budgets would
be limited to 4% or 120% of the CPI (the text
refers to the “levy”) unless voted af-firmatively
in a referendum where 50% of eli-gible voters
participate or voted affirmatively by 2/3 majority
where less than 50% of voters participate.
Exclusions for growth, certiorari, etc. (as per
current contingency budget cap) would continue.
=>Contingency Budget Disclosure — School budget
documents would have to compare the pro-posed
budget to the potential contingency budget;
=>Property Tax Report Card — Property tax
increases, spending growth, and enrollment changes
would have to be reported to SED to be compiled
into a “property tax report card” which would be
distributed prior to the vote day;

Program Initiatives
=> Charter Schools — $1 million added to stimulus
fund, $10 million in Federal pass-through funds
available. $275,000 for SED staffing;
Program Initiatives Cont’d
=>Public School Choice — SURR school students
would be able to “opt-out” of their current school
after 2 years;
=>“Literacy First” — This program would provide 6
weeks of intensive summer study to 4th graders who
performed poorly on the ELA test; $30 million for
an 80% state share is anticipated for the 2000-01
school year.
=>“Advantage Schools” — The budget proposes “$10
million for after school programs.
=> English Immersion Program — Would provide
inten-sive English language instruction in the
summer months for non-native speakers of English.
=>Elimination of Principal Tenure — Couched in the
rhetoric of accountability, the Governor proposed
elimination for principals and assistants.
=> Task Force on School Violence/Discipline — The
new Lt. Gov. Mary Donohue is be charged with
chairing a group comprised of parents, teachers,
students, and law enforcement officials to
ex-amine the issue of school violence.
=> Teacher Centers — The Governor proposes to
eliminate Teacher Centers after remaining
obligations for 1998-99 are met.
=> Regents Accountability Measures — “Legislation
will be advanced to curtail the Regents’ powers to
unilaterally impose costly regulatory mandates on
school districts.”

Analysis
The previous state budget increased at a rate 3
times that of inflation, earning the Governor an
easy reelection victory while endangering support
from his fiscal conservative allies. Eager to make
amends, this spending proposal holds all funds
(General, State, and Total) to growth at less than
the 2% rate of inflation. General Fund spending
(of which education is a part) increases by only
1.3%, total spending increases by only 1.8%.
Education, which represents 37% of General Fund
spending and which the Citizen’s Budget Commission
estimated would account for 58% of the total
anticipated General Fund increase, obviously had
to bear a disproportionate share of the belt
tightening.

The conservative focus adds fuel to the
speculation that the Governor intends to run for
national political of-fice. Conventional wisdom
dictates that the primary process is controlled by
the more extreme elements of each party.
Successful Republicans must first generate
enthusiasm among the party’s influential right
wing.

One of the few new ideas relates to circumscribing
the Regents’ regulatory authority. Unsuccessful
previous efforts to eliminate the Regents
altogether have resulted in an agenda to severely
limit their powers, particu-larly in the face of
growing concern among fiscal conservatives over
the cost of the new graduation require-ments,
Academic Intervention Services, professional
development and LEP instruction. Similarly, school
facilities oversight would be shifted to the
Dormitory Authority upstate and to the new
Moreland Act Commission in NYC.

Moreland Act Commission Created
In what some are describing as an escalating war
between NYC Mayor Rudy Guiliani and Governor
Pataki, the Governor appointed a special
commission under authority contained in the 1907
Moreland Act to investi-gate allegations of
corruption and mismanagement at the NYC School
Construction Authority. The Commis-sion is further
empowered to investigate the administration of the
City school system at large. The move is an
affront to both the Mayor and NYC Schools
Chancellor Rudy Crew, a Guiliani ally.

The animosity between the Governor and the Mayor
has been sharp ever since Guiliani crossed party
lines to endorse then-Governor Mario Cuomo’s
unsuccessful reelection bid against newcomer
Pataki. Their current ill will has been ascribed
to the fact that both are prominent moderate
Republicans with ambition for higher office. As
such they constantly vie for attention in the
national spotlight.

The last Moreland act investigation of education
took place in 1993 when Cuomo created a panel to
investi-gate schools and BOCES after the
embarrassing retirement of a BOCES superintendent
who received a mil-lion dollar pay-out of
accumulated sick and vacation leave. The
Commission’s findings, totaling 4 volumes, were
downplayed because they primarily showed that most
of the growth in education spending in the 1980s
was the result of runaway increases in special
education costs and that new state resources were
channeled into increasing the salaries of
teachers, particularly experienced teachers with
seniority.