Perseverance Pays Off - State Budget Provides $600 Million More for City Schools
By Assemblyman Steven Sanders

As Chairman of the Assembly's Committee on Education, working closely with Speaker Silver, I successfully fought for and secured an increase of $440 million in operating aid for public schools under provisions of the State budget adopted in mid-May.

In New York City, the Assembly's victory in adding this money should be sufficient to enable Mayor Bloomberg to eliminate his proposed citywide school cuts of nearly $400 million. Additionally, this budget will give to the City approximately $200 million more in State school aid as well as ensure that the City is promptly repaid over $435 million owed to it in what are referred to as "prior year claims,” relating to costs or contracts involving renovation, construction and transportation—usually repaid over many years.

The budget provides a solid foundation for the City to conclude—once and for all—a contract with the teachers. We came a long way from Governor Pataki's unacceptable January budget proposal, which contained damaging school aid cuts for New York City that would have amounted to a $400 million reduction. Without adequate state aid, school districts statewide were projecting drastic program cuts and teacher layoffs.

In addition, the Governor would have delayed previously promised building aid funding. Instead, the Assembly held its ground and secured in the adopted State budget education funding at a level that maintains our commitment to our children's future “dedicating 68 percent of the overall budget increase to education and higher education. The budget also includes funding for effective programs that have helped schools reduce class sizes, expand pre-K and kindergarten programs, improve teacher training, and modernize computer technology.

We were victorious in blocking the Governor's cuts in education virtually across the board, fully restoring cuts to so many vital programs such as Teacher Centers, mentor programs and job-training programs. The budget continues the Assembly's tradition of improving New York's schools. In the past eight years, the Assembly has fought for education aid increases and, year after year, rejected the Governor's school aid cuts.

Although I am disappointed that the budget doesn't meet all of the Assembly's goals, for the first time the Governor finally admitted this year that we clearly need more funding for our schools than he originally proposed. The fact that the Governor seems to finally grasp how badly his school aid cuts would have hurt our children, teachers, and taxpayers could be a good sign. While we need to do much more in the future, this budget is a good start in the direction we need to go.#

Steven Sanders is chairman of the NYS Assembly Education Committee. You can contact him at 201 E. 16^th St., New York, NY 10003 (email sanders@assembly.state.ny.us). Tel: (212) 979-9696.

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