January 13, 2006

"Despite a $2 billion surplus, state leaders seem poised once again to avoid meeting their duty under the Campaign for Fiscal equity decision," said New York State Educational Conference Board (ECB) Chair Edward L. McCormick. The ECB today called on the governor and Legislature to enact a statewide solution to the CFE case in this year's state budget. "Students in classrooms across the state have been severely shortchanged by the state's convoluted and inequitable education funding formulas," said McCormick.

McCormick went on, "It's been more than two years since New York's highest court found that the state education finance system denies some school children the opportunity for a sound basic education." McCormick added, "Ambitious proposals for property tax relief are already on the table. Enacting comprehensive statewide school finance reform would help lessen the local taxpayers' burden while assuring that all children get what the state constitution promises - the opportunity for a sound, basic education. The leaders would be simply fulfilling their duty under the law."

Special Masters appointed by the court in the CFE case have recommended the state increase funding to New York City schools by $5.6 billion a year, starting with $1.4 billion in the first year. "The problems the court found are not confined to New York City. The primary goal is to ensure that every child in our state receives a sound, basic education," McCormick said. "We cannot shortchange another generation of students. The state has to remedy the problems identified in the CFE case and apply that remedy to other needy districts - urban, suburban and rural. At the same time, the inflationary costs that all districts are facing must be addressed.

It's a tall order, but the reason it got so tall is that state leaders have failed to meet the January 2001 court mandate for reform on time."

The ECB has released its annual estimate of baseline education funding necessary next year to maintain current services and programs for schools across New York state. ECB found that simply maintaining the programs currently available to New York's public school students will cost an additional $2.153 billion in state and local education funding next year based on conservative estimates of costs that are mostly outside the control of local school districts.

Using a 50/50 state/local sharing formula, ECB estimates that local property taxes would increase by 4.6 percent on average if the state assumed its 50 percent share of the $2.153 billion necessary to sustain current services for another year. If the state does not provide its share, local taxes would rise by at least 9.3 percent on average. This estimate does not include any funding to respond to the CFE case. The $2.153 billion ECB estimate is based on an expected 4.1 percent increase in salaries, a 12.5 percent increase in fringe benefit costs and a 35 percent increase in energy costs. Other costs are expected to rise by 3.2 percent.

ECB urges the state to do the following for the next school year:

• Implement the recommendations of the expert panel for an additional $1.4 billion for New York City;
• Reform education funding formulas so that other districts similarly shortchanged by the state system will receive significant additional state aid; and
• Pay a fair share of the increased cost of maintaining present programs and services - $1.076 billion - to avoid dramatic property tax increases.

ECB comprises the eight major statewide education organizations representing parents, teachers, school board members, superintendents, school business officials, principals and other building administrators.