With state aid on the way, schools plan ahead
Most districts in the region to get some hike in state aid
Published: April 02, 2009, 12:30 am
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Property taxes will go up. Teachers and staff will be laid off. Education programs will be delayed or cut. But it could have been worse. That’s what school administrators are saying about the state budget that freezes general education aid at last year’s levels and distributes other aid according to formulas.
It’s not great, they say, but it’s better than the $700 million cut in school aid that Gov. David A. Paterson proposed.
“That’s the only good news, that it’s not down. That would have been really devastating,” said Gary M. Crosby, chief financial and operating officer for Buffalo Public Schools.
Buffalo, dependent on state aid for 80 percent of its funding, is looking at a $36 million gap in its 2009-10 budget. “We are still going to have to cut our way to a balanced budget,” Crosby said. “There isn’t enough stimulus money, and there isn’t enough rainy-day money.”
Wealthy suburban school districts such as Clarence, Orchard Park and East Aurora are not immune from the fiscal pressures. Clarence School Board members passed a budget Monday night that eliminates 14 positions, two fewer than planned. But instead of cutting the four elementary enrichment positions, the board kept two. The plan was to place the enrichment teachers back into the classroom to keep sizes down, Superintendent Thomas Coseo said.
Orchard Park was planning to cut 19 support staff positions, seven teaching positions and two administrative positions to make up cuts in state aid before the budget agreement.
“Compared to the governor’s proposal, I’m thrilled,” Jeffrey Petrus, assistant superintendent for business in Orchard Park, said about the 1.42 percent increase slated for Orchard Park.
But it won’t restore everything.
“We’re still going to have a tax increase,” he said. “It’s still going to affect our staffing and taxes.”
East Aurora was planning to add universal prekindergarten next year, but with funding frozen at this year’s levels, the district will not get any money for it, Superintendent James Bodziak said.
“We spent this year planning the program to implement for next year. Now it looks like we’ll have to put it on the back burner,” he said.
It’s likely to be a multiyear problem for school districts, with general operating aid to be frozen again next year.
“By freezing operation aid to school districts over the next two years, the state is forcing school districts and taxpayers to absorb two years of inflation and contractional increases,” said David Albert, spokesman for the New York State School Boards Association.
Lewiston-Porter schools are slated to receive an increase of about 3.2 percent — the biggest increase of any district in Niagara County.
School officials had thought they would face an 8 percent cut in aid, said Assistant Superintendent Donald W. Rappold.
“We’re very pleased here,” he said, “but we also know a couple years down the road we’ve got to start making some changes in terms of operations of the school district.”
Some districts have tried to plan for a day when aid would not increase.
“We weren’t growing very much, we weren’t hiring additional personnel, we kept things conservative,” Sloan Superintendent James P. Mazgajewski said.
Still, the district will not replace two aides who are retiring. Other staffers who are retiring will be replaced with employees coming in at a lower salary, and the district probably will use $100,000 to $200,000 more in reserve funds than last year.
Some school districts will be able to scale back planned program reductions.
In Wilson, which is expected to receive a 1.4 percent increase in aid, Business Administrator Joseph Tette said the district initially planned about $760,000 in across-the-board cuts.
School officials were prepared to trim at the elementary, middle and high school levels, as well as sports and extra-classroom activities, Tette said.
The amount of aid restored to the district, which is “substantially more” than what Paterson proposed, Tette said, will help avert cuts, though school officials have not discussed which areas will be saved.
“The increase in aid we are getting is still short of what was originally promised,” he said.
“It’s good news,” Lancaster Superintendent Edward Myszak said, adding, “I’ll have a better answer in about 72 hours.”
He said he is more optimistic the district can meet its goal of no tax increase, but he will know more after he has time to go over the aid formulas.
Charter schools are not happy with the freeze on their funds, either. Charter schools already get 30 percent less funding than school districts, and they can’t levy taxes to make up the difference, said Bill Phillips, president of the New York State Charter School Association.
Administrators said it appears federal stimulus money brought foundation aid up to last year’s levels. They’re also seeing an increase in federal grant funding for special education and underperforming students, thanks to the stimulus.
And for the first time, those federal grants were included in the state aid runs.
“It’s unprecedented for them to put that number in the state aid run,” said Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, a group involved in past legal efforts for more school funding. “This is the increase in aid that Congress appropriated to pass through directly to school districts.”
While grateful for any aid, administrators said there are restrictions on how the federal grants can be used, unlike foundation aid, which can be used to avert layoffs and lower taxes.
News Staff Reporter Aaron Besecker contributed to this report.
bobrien@buffnews.com
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