Archive: Around Town

Mark S. LewisPerhaps you read this week where the New York State Court of Appeals amended a lower court ruling requiring the State of New York to increase school aid to New York City by a whopping $5.63 billion. The lower court’s decision was the result of a lawsuit brought by a group of New York City parents and community members who alleged that the current state funding level for New York City fell far below what the group contended was necessary to provide New York City students a “sound basic education” as mandated by the New York State Constitution. The Court of Appeals reduced the settlement to $1.93 billion, adjusted for inflation, payable over four years. This amounts to approximately $500 million additional school aid for New York City for the next four years in addition to the aid increase that would be provided normally in any given fiscal year. New York City currently receives in excess of $6 billion per year in state school aid.

Opponents of the lawsuit (deemed “The Campaign for Fiscal Equity”) charged that the lower court vastly overstepped its authority by mandating legislative action to increase aid to New York City schools. In so doing, the opponents asserted, the courts ventured into the legislative branch of government, upsetting the balance of power and usurping legislative discretion. Supporters of the action promoted the “sound basic education” argument per Constitutional requirement, a requirement they contended was unachievable, given the current level of state funding for NYC schools. The Court of Appeals apparently saw credence in the plaintiffs’ argument, albeit not to the same level as did the lower court and subsequently reduced the settlement.

All of this is good news for Upstate New York schools and communities, Lansing notwithstanding, who no doubt would have been forced to shoulder a large portion of the $5.63 billion settlement in the form of reduced school aid packages well into the future. The “Robin Hood Effect”, as it came to be known (taking dollars from suburban and rural New York schools and giving them to New York City), would have rendered a double-barreled effect on schools across the state in terms of higher taxes and reduced services to students.

In short, our children would have suffered cuts in educational programs to address the educational needs of New York City children and our taxpayers would have been forced to shoulder in a de facto manner a New York City tax surcharge in the form of higher property taxes to offset the loss in school aid wrought by the Robin Hood Effect. Thanks to the Court of Appeals, however, the prospects of such a scenario materializing have been dramatically reduced. Granted, the state must still come up with an extra $1.93 billion for New York City. However, that will be paid in the form of four annual installments of approximately $500 billion. That amounts to a sixty-six percent reduction in the initial settlement.

With the whispers of a year-end surplus echoing about the halls of the legislature in Albany, it appears that the settlement will not be funded on the backs of school districts throughout the state. Thus, the threat of damage to schools and communities such as Lansing by virtue of a reduction in state aid wrought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit appears, thankfully, to have been greatly diminished, if not eliminated. We’ll let you know.

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