Governor Patterson cuts state aid for CNY schools

By Rodney Brown
Staff Reporter

School districts in Central New York took to the polls last week to vote on a budget that Gov. Patterson and legislative leaders in Albany have yet to hammer out.

The districts are not sure how much state aid they will receive.

The governor has proposed a plan to cut aid to school districts by 5 percent. The Syracuse City school district is the only one in Central New York that doesn't allow constituents to vote on the budget. It is included in the city's budget. It has been reported that the biggest cuts are in the two biggest districts in the county- Liverpool and North Syracuse.

More than 420 positions have been eliminated in Onondaga County. In all, teaching positions has taken the biggest hit. The proposed plan would cut 8 million in state aid from Syracuse's school district. It also calls for even bigger cuts in Fayetteville- 2.3 million, North Syracuse- 6 million and West Genesee could lose close to 3 million. "I applied the cuts to individual districts based on wealth and level of student need," said Patterson.

The governor is seeking to cut education aid by 1.1 billion dollars in total. "We knew it was coming but it's painful," said Peter Tigh, Lafayette Superintendent. "These cuts have a big impact on the poorer and rural districts which are dependent on state aid."

After school programs are also slated to lose a substantial amount of money.

Under Patterson's proposal the Advantage After School program would be reduced to 17 million dollars. Officials associated with the program said, 79 of the 303 program sites would be forced to close their doors when the contract expire this year. "I don't like having to plan for deep cuts but I am trying to close an estimated 8.2 billion budget deficit," said Patterson.

"The closures would eliminate after school programs operated through YMCA's, Boys & Girls Clubs and other groups for more than 6,000 children and eliminate thousands of jobs," said John Albert, a spokesperson for the After School Corporation.

School groups haven't been taking the news sitting down. The New York State School United Teachers, New York State School Boards Association, New York State Council of School Superintendents and the School Administrators Association of New York State have filed legal briefs in court challenging the governor's proposal.

Travis Proulx, a spokesperson for Senate Democratic leader John Sampson of Brooklyn accused the governor of "impoundment"- which is the refusal of the executive branch to spend funds which have been appropriated by the legislature. "The governor's actions are clearly impoundment by another name and the courts have long determined he does not have the authority," said Proulx.

"Essential service in health care also need to be protected but not at the cost of what's essential to education," said Richard Iannuzzi, the president of New York State United Teachers.

Randi Weingarten, president of New York City's public school teachers union and the United Federation of Teachers went on to say, they have a two-year-old court ruling on their side which mandated that the state increase fun to city schools by more than 2 billion over four years to meet is constitutional obligations.

"If you don't understand what government's obligation is, then somebody might look at it that way but under the State Constitution, the state has an obligation to provide all of its children with a sound basic education," said Weingarten.