JAMESTOWN – Jamestown school officials held a meeting Tuesday night to begin the process of developing a 2015-2016 district budget. However, as Superintendent Tim Mains noted during his presentation, the district has not received any preliminary state funding numbers from Albany – making it extremely difficult to craft and finalize a budget.
This is a first for the district, which typically receives State Aid runs from the state education department once he presents his executive spending plan. However, this year, Governor Andrew Cuomo has said he will not release the preliminary state aid runs to more than 600 districts across the state until the state legislature approves a series of education reforms he is pushing for in the current session.
WRFA talked with State Assemblyman Andy Goodell about the tactic when the budget was first introduced last month, and Goodell says obviously its not fair for any district, especially those that are facing financial challenges…
Andy Goodell
“I think it’s ridiculous that the governor’s budget doesn’t lay all the cards on the table and provide all the information for the legislators to review,” Goodell said. “So for the governor to interfere with state aid runs that are normally produced by the State Education Department is, in my opinion, a real travesty.”
The governor has said he’ll deliver an additional $750 million in funding to school districts if the legislature agrees on a series of reforms he’s proposing. However, Goodell says the governor already knows the amount of money that is already committed to district without considering the addition funds tied to reforms, and so if nothing else, they deserve to have those numbers.
“That money is going to be there whether or not the legislature enacts the reform, so even though the governor is trying to use this as leverage, if you will, for the reforms, I think the funding will be enacted in any event,” Goodell said, adding that he will work to see that local districts get more aid than they have seen in recent years. “From my prospective I’m pushing hard for the elimination of the Gap Elimination Adjustment which hurts all our schools in Chautauqua County, as well as an increase in the foundation aid, which would be particularly helpful for Jamestown and Dunkirk.”
Not receiving state runs is only the latest challenge the Jamestown School District has had to face. Last week, school officials learned the district was placed on the State Comptrollers list for financially stressed school districts, with Jamestown being considered a district under moderate fiscal stress. The district is also currently fighting the state in Albany via the Small Cities School lawsuit, which began last month and is aimed at ensuring more state funding is delivered to struggling small city districts.
As for Jamestown’s initial budget projections for the 2015-2016 school year, the district is expecting to see a 2.8 percent increase in just teacher salaries. School officials will hold another budget workshop later this month. After that, Superintendent Mains and his staff will finalize the budget and present it to the school board for its consideration.
The board is required to finalize a spending plan by mid-April, so that it can be presented and put up for a public vote in early May.
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