Time to end schools’ GEA cut, lawmakers say |
On Board Online • February 25, 2013
By Cathy Woodruff
A coalition of Capital Region lawmakers is urging the governor and legislative leaders to reform the school aid formula in the upcoming state budget and end the annual practice of withholding billions in aid through the so-called Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA).
"It was supposed to be a one-time cut,” Sen. Cecilia Tkaczyk, a Schenectady County Democrat and former Duanesburg school board member, said of the GEA.
An across-the-board state spending rollback that began in 2010, the GEA has continued. The amount withheld from schools through the GEA is $2.15 billion this year, she said, down only moderately from the previous $2.7 billion level.
“We’re still taking a lot of money out of our schools,” Tkaczyk said. “Schools have no choice but to continue to make educational cuts.”
Tkaczyk, who is starting her first year in the Senate, has emerged as the informal leader of the new, eight-member school-advocacy coalition that wrote to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders on Feb. 20. All are Democrats except for Assemblyman Peter Lopez of Schoharie, a Republican.
“While we commend the governor for proposing a 4.4 percent increase for education aid in his executive budget,” the group wrote, “we fear this amount will … be insufficient to prevent more program cuts, especially for our high need and high poverty school districts.”
The group is seeking five revisions to the governor’s executive budget plan:
- Re-direct $203 million from a proposed Fiscal Stabilization Fund to restoration of GEA money being withheld.
- Re-allocate $50 million in proposed management efficiency and performance improvement grants to GEA restoration.
- Apply any “bullet aid” money ($41 million in the last two budgets) and unspent money from 2012-13 competitive grants to GEA restoration.
- Adjust formulas for GEA restoration and foundation aid for fairer distribution based on local fiscal capacity and student need.
- Add $350 million in new school aid with priority to high-need and average-need districts.
The funding squeeze is taking a toll on programs in school districts of all types – urban, suburban, rural, high-poverty and even some relatively affluent districts – through a combination of state aid cuts and local property tax caps, the legislators said at a news conference.
The lawmakers say targeting GEA, which has put most districts back below levels of aid they received four or five years ago, is one way to have an immediate impact on funding inequities and significantly ease the burden for schools.
“We’ve committed to focusing on this issue because this is the issue our constituents have spoken to us most about,” said Assemblyman Phil Steck (D-Colonie).
“Everyone is in a desperation mode,” said Sen. Neil Breslin, a veteran Democrat legislator from Albany.
Assembly member Patricia Fahy, former president of the Albany City school board, said her 109th Assembly District has lost 535 teaching and “education-related” positions since the GEA began. Assemblyman John McDonald (D-Cohoes) said 631 jobs have been cut in his 108th Assembly District, more than half through layoffs.
The lawmakers also cited cuts to art, music and athletics; larger class sizes and elimination of crucial college-preparation classes.
Fonda-Fultonville School Board President Linda Wszolek said staff in her Montgomery County district has been reduced by 17 percent, along with widespread salary freezes.
“We had to lay off our psychologist. We had to lay off our business teacher,” Wszolek said.
Cohoes School District Superintendent Robert Libby said he’s pleased that the region’s new legislators have moved so quickly to take on issues of school aid fairness and sufficiency. It probably helps, he said, that Tkaczyk and Fahy have served recently on school boards. He noted that two others stepped up from local government posts – Assemblyman John McDonald, the former mayor of Cohoes, and Steck, a former Albany County legislator.
“Obviously, they understand that the costs can no longer be pushed down and the property tax is not the right place to fund education,” he said.
Calls to spokesmen for Cuomo, Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos were not returned in time for On Board’s press time.