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Nearly 200 people gathered at Trumansburg High School Saturday for a forum on how state and federal school aid cuts will impact local schools.  With $1.4 billion being cut state-wide, the impact to schools in the TST BOCES system will be 10 million in cuts in the coming year.  The purpose of the forum was to join local school districts to form a louder voice than individual districts have in order to attract press and legislative attention.  The message was to slow down the onslaught of cuts and get rid of nonproductive unfunded state and federal mandates.

"We are in survival mode," said Groton Superintendent Brenda Myers.  "Groton lost 15 ½ positions last year alone."

Speakers put into perspective how cuts in state and federal funding will actually impact local schools.  TST BOCES Superintendent Ellen O'Donnell, who moderated the Save Our Schools forum, told WHCU listeners this week that the school districts have always been responsible, but people won't stand for the kinds of tax rises the state cuts could trigger.  That means that districts across the BOCES district are looking at cuts.  She noted that at a cost of about  $60,000 per teacher the $10 million schools across her district will suffer are the equivalent of nearly  167 teachers.

This year American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) filled the budget hole left by New York's Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA) cuts.  Next school year ARRA money will also fill some of that lost state aid.  The 'funding cliff' comes in the 2011-2012 school year when the state continues to drop aid, but ARRA funding expires.

All the districts are stuck with considerable fixed costs, including contractual salary and benefit increases and severe rises in the cost of health insurance.  GEA reductions have a range of impacts on the eight districts.  Lansing (5.72%) and Ithaca (4.96%) will see the least impact on their tax levies because they don't rely on state aid as heavily as other districts.  Groton (17.83%) and Candor (16.83%) will be hardest hit by the cuts.

School administrators suggested ideas that would help schools cope with the funding cliff, the most significant of which is relief from unfunded mandates.  They asked for changes in how money can be spent and saved, to prevent Governor David Patterson from shifting the cost of preschools from the counties to the school districts, to reduce paperwork and administrative mandates, to relieve school districts from the controversial Wicks Law that inflates the price of construction projects, and to implement a real moratorium on all unfunded mandates.  They also suggested a dozen changes to New York State Education Department (SED) procedures, and a slew of federal mandates.

"If the state dictates services, they should pay for them," said Dryden Superintendent Sandy Sherwood.  "We need relief from the Contingency Law Budget Cap, attempts to shift the pre-school costs from the County to the school districts, even though it is the County that has the oversight.  And we need to extend the reserve for employee and teacher's retirement in order to smooth out the spikes of cost and their impact on the taxpayers."

State Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton and Suzanne Redmond representing Assemblyman Gary Finch were present, but didn't have much hope to offer.  Lifton said that a 1980s tax cut on the top 4% of earners in the state has cost New York $22 billion, and recommended reinstating the tax.  But in a letter to New Yorkers this week Governor Patterson said that the state deficit has climbed to $9 billion today.

"We cannot spend what we do not have," Patterson wrote.  "Families across New York understand that.  It is time that Albany gets with the program.  State government needs to live within its means.  The revenues that supported decades of overspending are gone. The mistakes of the past squandering surpluses, papering over deficits, relying on irresponsible fiscal gimmicks to finance unsustainable spending increases have led us to a financial breaking point."

Patterson proposed still more cuts to state agencies including an additional $500 million this year.  In the face of these cuts the prospects for reinstating even part of school aid looks grim.

"We listen to everybody," Redmond said.  "We care.  Sometimes we can't change things though."

Facing the prospect of plummeting off the funding cliff, administrators urged attendees to contact legislators and Patterson to slow down the cuts, modify the contingency budget formula, pass state budgets on time, and reduce mandates and regulations on school districts.

"We are asking for regular people to get involved and spread the word," said Candor school board member Ray Parmeter.  "There may be about 200 people laid off from the districts with a corresponding increase in unemployment and job competition. This is a cost to the heart and soul of our community"

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