State Budget Bills Being Printed |
After an extended negotiation process, state budget bills have begun to be printed. As of this morning, the main education bill has been released. Initial reports suggest the bill is likely to be debated and voted on today.
The NYSSBA Governmental Relations Department is analyzing this bill and will complete an in-depth review of the additional budget bills when they become available. We will share a comprehensive analysis of the entire budget in the days to come, but wanted to share a few key highlights of the education budget bill. Those include:
- Full-funding of Foundation Aid
- All districts guaranteed at least a 2% increase over 2025-26 funding level
- Creation of a new weighting (0.12) within the formula for homeless students and students in foster care
- Increase in the weighting within the formula for English language learner (ELL) students from 0.53 to 0.60
- 5 year delay of the zero-emission school bus mandate
- New purchase deadline pushed back to 2032 and the 100% ZEB fleet deadline pushed back to 2040
- Expansion of 4-year-old pre-kindergarten, generally as proposed by the Governor
- Increase in funding to a minimum $10,000 per student
- Requirement that all districts offer services to any student whose parents/guardians request it, by 2028-29
In addition, final state aid runs, detailing district-specific funding information, can be found here.
In the coming days, we will announce a date and time for our Enacted Budget Webinar. You can find registration information when it becomes available on our events page.