School aid figures available (and murky); on-time budget in doubt
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 4:22 pm by Robert Lowry
Estimates of School Aid for individual districts under the state budget agreement are now available here.
We and the School Boards Association have been taking calls from from puzzled reporters asking for help in interpreting the aid runs.
At the bottom, the runs present totals which include increases in federal Title I and IDEA aid. We’ve urged reporters to use instead the totals above — changes in aid including the building-related aids, but excluding the federal aid. These are the figures that papers usually report.
We also explain that federal “supplement, not supplant” requirements are expected to prevent districts from using most of the new aid to offset local taxes, or to preserve existing programs or positions.
It now seems possible that the Legislature will be not be able to complete action on the budget today, in time to meet the midnight deadline for a literally on-time budget.
One of the members of State Senate’s narrow Democratic majority went to an area hospital with pneumonia today. The Senate recessed for several hours to await her return, without having passed any of the nine bills comprising the state budget.
The Senate now plans to reconvene at 5:30 pm.
As of now, the Assembly has passed two of the nine bills.
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